Securities and Finance

NERA is widely recognized as a leading firm in the economics of securities, finance, and commerce. Our experts apply their skills in these areas to assist clients in securities and product liability litigation, commercial disputes, and risk management. We bring to bear a thorough understanding of securities, the markets in which they trade, and the regulatory institutions that govern them.

NERA economists provide answers to difficult questions arising in areas including:

• Auction-rate securities
• Class actions and opt-out suits involving individual securities and funds
• Broker-customer disputes alleging unsuitability and churning
• Subprime lending
• Option backdating
• Allegations of improper trading behavior by specialists or others
• Mutual fund and brokerage fee reasonableness analyses
• Market timing and late trading allegations in mutual funds
• Hedge fund litigation
• Valuations of fixed income and derivative products
• Valuations of firms or operating entities
• Forensic accounting, including proper application of accounting rules
• Complex commercial disputes
• Economic analyses of materiality, reliance, and loss causation
• Market efficiency and tracing analyses
• Analysis of the fairness of a proposed settlement
• Measuring costs of illiquidity
• Bankruptcy and fraudulent conveyance actions
• Derivative suits
• Insider trading and manipulation cases
• Business valuations, including reviews of merger/acquisition due diligence
• Mispricing and suitability issues
• Practices such as IPO allocations and markup policies
• Insurance litigation, including insolvencies and policyholder class actions
• ERISA actions alleging imprudent investments
• Employee stock option valuations
• Supervisory goodwill litigation
• Evaluation of risk management practices and instruments
• Strategic consulting for exchanges and securities firms
• Development of new financial products
• Impact assessment of proposed regulatory changes

Our experts' knowledge spans equity and commodity markets; US government, corporate, municipal, and mortgage securities; bonds and currencies of global and emerging markets; and warrants, futures, forwards, swaps, options, and other derivatives.