Allie Schwartz

Allie Schwartz coheads Cornerstone Research’s valuation, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and bankruptcy practice. Dr. Schwartz specializes in securities, valuation, and financial derivatives in securities litigation; M&A-related disputes; bankruptcies; and regulatory investigations. She also consults on matters affecting financial institutions, including alleged anticompetitive conduct, insider and disruptive trading, hedging, and risk management. She serves on the firm’s risk management committee.

Dr. Schwartz has nearly two decades of experience supporting experts and leading teams through multiple stages of litigation, including deposition, domestic and international arbitration, and numerous trials in state and federal courts. She has also supported clients in regulatory inquiries, including analyzing large datasets and presenting findings to enforcement staff.

Securities litigation

Dr. Schwartz has worked on numerous cases addressing class certification issues, including price impact and merits issues, such as loss causation and damages assessment. These matters have involved domestic securities, including common stock, corporate bonds, and mortgage-backed securities (MBS), as well as American depositary receipts (ADRs) issued by foreign companies. Examples include the following:

• Arkansas Teacher Retirement System et al. v. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. et al.
• In re Qualcomm Inc. Securities Litigation
• In re January 2021 Short Squeeze Trading Litigation (the Robinhood meme stock matter)
• IBEW Local 90 Pension Fund et al. v. Deutsche Bank AG et al.
• In re BP p.l.c. Securities Litigation (May 2014 and June 2016 rulings)

M&A and bankruptcy litigation

Dr. Schwartz has worked on litigation involving the valuation analyses of companies, their assets, and financial instruments such as options and earnouts in the context of M&A disputes. She has also assessed damages in business disputes, including those arising from M&A and other corporate transactions.

In bankruptcy-related matters, Dr. Schwartz has addressed solvency, capital adequacy, and reasonably equivalent value in alleged fraudulent transfer cases, as well as the determination of cramdown rates. Her work also includes issues facing companies in financial distress, such as access to financing, loan amendments, and valuation-related disputes.

Dr. Schwartz coauthors Cornerstone Research’s annual Trends in Large Corporate Bankruptcy and Financial Distress report.

SEC, DOJ, and state regulatory investigations

Dr. Schwartz has worked on matters involving investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of Justice (DOJ), and the New York Attorney General (NYAG), as well as internal investigations. These matters have involved allegations of market and benchmark manipulation, spoofing and laddering, insider trading, and Ponzi schemes, as well as questions of investment suitability.

Financial instruments

Dr. Schwartz has analyzed alleged anticompetitive conduct by rate-setting banks. She has also valued financial derivatives, assessed transaction costs, and evaluated hedging and risk management practices. In these matters, her clients have included investment and commercial banks, insurance companies, and hedge funds.

Her work involves a range of financial instruments, including credit default swaps (CDS); corporate, municipal, sovereign, and treasury bonds; interest rate swaps and forward rate agreements (FRAs); foreign exchange (FX) instruments; equity derivatives structured products, such as residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities (RMBS and CMBS); and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).

Before joining Cornerstone Research, Dr. Schwartz worked as an equity research analyst at Goldman Sachs & Co. She has also published research on institutional trading and earnings announcements in the Journal of Financial Economics.