Manuel Vasconcelos

Manuel Vasconcelos specializes in complex commercial disputes and regulatory inquiries involving trading analysis, valuation, and damages. His work encompasses many industries, notably energy, financial institutions, private equity (PE), technology, and venture capital (VC). Dr. Vasconcelos has extensive experience with market manipulation claims and serves as the head of Cornerstone Research’s market manipulation and market microstructure practice. He works on high-stakes matters across a range of financial instruments in cash and derivative markets, including fixed-income, equity, natural gas, and credit.

Dr. Vasconcelos leads teams supporting academic and industry experts at all stages of litigation and in international arbitration matters. He also leads teams working on internal and regulatory investigations and proceedings and regularly presents findings to boards, senior executives, and regulators. Dr. Vasconcelos’s work frequently addresses novel situations that require creative strategies and sophisticated empirical approaches grounded in academic research.

On behalf of clients, Dr. Vasconcelos has presented to staff members at the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Internationally, he has worked on matters initiated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the European Commission (EC).

Dr. Vasconcelos also has significant experience with Section 10b-5 and Section 11 securities matters at the class certification and merits stages, including on IBEW Local 90 Pension Fund et al. v. Deutsche Bank AG et al., in which the court denied class certification.

Dr. Vasconcelos’s experience includes:

Trading analysis, market manipulation, and market microstructure

• Extensive work in matters involving alleged manipulation of benchmarks, including interest rate benchmarks, natural gas indices, and interdealer broker screens
• Conducting empirical analyses in the context of inquiries into spoofing, pre-hedging, and other alleged market manipulation conduct, leveraging analyses of large internal bank and market trading datasets
• Evaluating and benchmarking execution quality in equity markets and investigating payment for order flow issues
• Working on antitrust investigations and litigation in the credit default swap (CDS), agency bond, and variable-rate demand obligation (VRDO) markets
• Analyzing design and risk management issues related to interest rate and equity derivatives
• Assessing valuation of fixed-income securities held by asset managers in illiquid markets
• Researching issues related to LIBOR transition and its potential impact on derivative and cash markets

Valuation and quantification of economic damages

• Valuing public and private companies
• Validating International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) close-out process and claim amounts for fixed-income, commodity, and equity derivative positions, with an emphasis on interest rate swaps and swaptions
• Calculating damages in contractual disputes in many industries, including construction, electricity, financial services, mining, natural gas, and PE

Private markets

• Consulting on matters requiring in-depth understanding of start-up financing and VC fund practices, including in the context of alleged patent infringement and trade secret misappropriation
• Consulting on matters related to PE industry structure and practices
• Analyzing terms of private debt and extent to which they were aligned with market practices
• Assessing terms and characteristics of equity claims by early-stage and VC-backed firms, such as convertible notes, simple agreements for future equity (SAFEs), and convertible preferred stock
• Valuing early-stage and VC-backed firms based on the terms of their financing rounds
• Analyzing financial claims of general partners (GPs) and limited partners (LPs) in PE and VC funds

Energy markets

• Analyzing and modeling the impact of external factors on U.S. natural gas prices
• Consulting on an investigation of trading in natural gas markets during bidweek, including analyzing potential reasons for such trading
• Assessing alleged misconduct in natural gas procurement and associated damages
• Assessing damages in connection with a power plant’s participation in Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland’s (PJM’s) energy and capacity markets

Pro bono

Dr. Vasconcelos is active in Cornerstone Research’s pro bono initiatives. He led efforts in an initial phase of Booth et al. v. Galveston County et al., a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleging bail amounts were set without regard to ability to pay, resulting in extended detention.

Dr. Vasconcelos has published academic research in the Review of Financial Studies and the International Review of Financial Analysis. Previously, he worked at McKinsey & Co.