Brattle | Insights & Events | Accounting https://www.brattle.com/ Fri, 07 Jul 2023 20:13:07 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.2 https://www.brattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/favicon.png Brattle https://www.brattle.com/ 32 32 The Brattle Group Welcomes Accounting Expert Alison Forman as Principal https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/news/the-brattle-group-welcomes-accounting-expert-alison-forman-as-principal/ Fri, 07 Jul 2023 20:13:07 +0000 https://www.brattle.com/?p=50790 The Brattle Group has welcomed Alison Forman to its Chicago office as a Principal in the firm’s Accounting practice. Ms. Forman is an expert in accounting, auditing, and financial reporting issues that arise in complex litigations, regulatory enforcement matters, and corporate investigations. “Alison is a wonderful addition to Brattle’s Accounting practice and growing Chicago office,” said Brattle Interim President & […]

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The Brattle Group has welcomed Alison Forman to its Chicago office as a Principal in the firm’s Accounting practice. Ms. Forman is an expert in accounting, auditing, and financial reporting issues that arise in complex litigations, regulatory enforcement matters, and corporate investigations.

“Alison is a wonderful addition to Brattle’s Accounting practice and growing Chicago office,” said Brattle Interim President & Principal David J. Hutchings. “She will greatly expand our capabilities in advising clients on financial accounting and reporting disputes.”

Ms. Forman has over two decades of consulting experience spanning numerous industries, including financial institutions, healthcare, real estate, oil and gas, high-tech, and retail. She has worked with testifying experts and attorneys at all phases of litigation, providing complex analyses, financial modeling, and expert reports, and worked on enforcement matters brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), and state boards of accountancy.

Her expertise includes applying and evaluating compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and PCAOB auditing standards. Ms. Forman has experience evaluating alleged financial reporting fraud, the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) materiality and assessment of errors, financial restatements, auditor independence, and alleged auditor misconduct.

“I am thrilled to be joining Brattle’s robust team of Securities experts,” said Ms. Forman. “I look forward to helping the firm’s Accounting practice grow while helping clients navigate complex litigations and investigations.”

Prior to joining Brattle, Ms. Forman was a Principal at an international economics consultancy. She is a certified public accountant (CPA) and certified in financial forensics (CFF) by the AICPA.

To learn more about Ms. Forman, see her full bio.

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Dr. Adrienna Huffman and Coauthors Publish Article on Real Earnings Management Measures https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/dr-adrienna-huffman-and-coauthors-publish-article-on-real-earnings-management-measures/ Mon, 20 Mar 2023 13:01:33 +0000 https://www.brattle.com/?p=49773 Though of great interest to regulators and practitioners, real earnings management (REM) – the practice of altering operating and investing transactions to meet financial targets and mislead stakeholders – can be extremely challenging to measure. This difficulty is heightened by the fact that firms might change their transactions for strategic business reasons, rather than intent […]

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Though of great interest to regulators and practitioners, real earnings management (REM) – the practice of altering operating and investing transactions to meet financial targets and mislead stakeholders – can be extremely challenging to measure. This difficulty is heightened by the fact that firms might change their transactions for strategic business reasons, rather than intent to mislead.

In an article recently published by Contemporary Accounting Research, Brattle Senior Associate Dr. Adrienna Huffman and her coauthors present a new measure to better distinguish earnings manipulation from strategic changes. Their comprehensive approach is designed to reflect the concurrent use of multiple REM activities and other signals that indicate an elevated risk of manipulation. The authors compare their new approach to standard REM measures and find that it performs better than existing metrics across various dimensions, and may be particularly useful in research settings.

The full article, “A Simple Approach to Better Distinguish Real Earnings Manipulation from Strategy Changes,” is available below.

View Article

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American Finance Association Announces 2022 Recipients of The Brattle Group Prizes in Corporate Finance https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/news/american-finance-association-announces-2022-recipients-of-the-brattle-group-prizes-in-corporate-finance/ Tue, 17 Jan 2023 21:07:55 +0000 https://www.brattle.com/?p=48670 Each year, the Associate Editors of The Journal of Finance – published by the American Finance Association (AFA) – select three winners to receive The Brattle Group Prizes for outstanding papers in corporate finance. The Brattle Group supports this annual award to recognize the importance of excellence in providing groundbreaking analysis and debate on compelling issues facing the […]

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Each year, the Associate Editors of The Journal of Finance – published by the American Finance Association (AFA) – select three winners to receive The Brattle Group Prizes for outstanding papers in corporate finance. The Brattle Group supports this annual award to recognize the importance of excellence in providing groundbreaking analysis and debate on compelling issues facing the corporate finance community.

The winners of the 2022 Brattle Group Prize in Corporate Finance are:

First Prize, $25,000: Andreas Fuster, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Tarun Ramadorai, and Ansgar Walther
Predictably Unequal? The Effects of Machine Learning on Credit Markets
The Journal of Finance, February 2022

Distinguished Paper, $10,000: Asaf Bernstein
Negative Home Equity and Household Labor Supply
The Journal of Finance, December 2021

Distinguished Paper, $10,000: Isaac Hacamo and Kristoph Kleiner
Forced Entrepreneurs
The Journal of Finance, February 2022

The Brattle Group has funded this annual award for more than 20 years. These prizes are presented at the AFA’s annual meeting, and this year’s awards were announced at the AFA’s Annual Meeting 2023, which took place January 6–8 in New Orleans, LA. All papers published in issues of The Journal of Finance from the first five issues of the given year, and December of the previous year, are eligible. We congratulate the winners on their achievements!

View a complete list of past winners

More about the AFA

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Dr. Adrienna Huffman Coauthors Article on Accruals Earnings Management Proxies https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/dr-adrienna-huffman-coauthors-article-on-accruals-earnings-management-proxies/ Wed, 26 Jan 2022 20:04:12 +0000 https://www.brattle.com/?p=45103 Empirical proxies for accruals-based earnings management abound in accounting research. Researchers use these proxies to measure diverse managerial and corporate activities that represent fundamentally different constructs, from beneficial earnings management (e.g., income smoothing) to earnings manipulation. Associate Dr. Adrienna Huffman has coauthored an article, “Accruals Earnings Management Proxies: Prudent Business Decisions or Earnings Manipulation?” in […]

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Empirical proxies for accruals-based earnings management abound in accounting research. Researchers use these proxies to measure diverse managerial and corporate activities that represent fundamentally different constructs, from beneficial earnings management (e.g., income smoothing) to earnings manipulation.

Associate Dr. Adrienna Huffman has coauthored an article, “Accruals Earnings Management Proxies: Prudent Business Decisions or Earnings Manipulation?” in the Journal of Business Finance & Accounting. The article presents a simple framework that defines the specific construct of “earnings manipulation” and places it within the context of the broader concept of “earnings management.” The authors also propose two simple empirical solutions that researchers can implement to capture the construct of earnings manipulation.

The full article can be found below (behind paywall).

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American Finance Association Announces 2021 Recipients of The Brattle Group Prize https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/news/american-finance-association-announces-2021-recipients-of-the-brattle-group-prize/ Tue, 18 Jan 2022 14:17:17 +0000 https://www.brattle.com/?p=45017 Each year, the associate editors of The Journal of Finance select three winners to receive the Brattle Group Prize for outstanding papers in corporate finance. The Brattle Group supports this yearly award in an effort to recognize the importance of excellence in providing groundbreaking analysis and debate on compelling issues facing the corporate finance community. First Prize, $25,000: Peter […]

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Each year, the associate editors of The Journal of Finance select three winners to receive the Brattle Group Prize for outstanding papers in corporate finance. The Brattle Group supports this yearly award in an effort to recognize the importance of excellence in providing groundbreaking analysis and debate on compelling issues facing the corporate finance community.

First Prize, $25,000: Peter M. DeMarzo and Zhiguo He
Leverage Dynamics without Commitment
The Journal of Finance,
December 2020

Distinguished Paper, $10,000: Itamar Drechsler, Alexi Savov, and Philipp Schnabl
Banking on Deposits: Maturity Transformation without Interest Rate Risk
The Journal of Finance,
February 2021

Distinguished Paper, $10,000: Pat Akey and Ian Appel
The Limits of Limited Liability: Evidence from Industrial Pollution
The Journal of Finance,
February 2021

The Brattle Group has funded this yearly award for more than 20 years. These prizes are presented at the AFA’s annual meeting, and this year’s awards were announced at the virtual 2022 ASSA/American Finance Association’s (AFA) Annual Meeting on January 7–9. All papers published in the prior year’s issues of The Journal of Finance are eligible. We congratulate the winners on their achievement!

View a Complete List of Past Winners

More about the AFA

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Brattle Economists Author Article on Goodwill Impairments Related to COVID-19 https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/brattle-economists-author-article-on-goodwill-impairments-related-to-covid-19/ https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/brattle-economists-author-article-on-goodwill-impairments-related-to-covid-19/#respond Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:14:12 +0000 https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/news/securities-litigation-implications-of-covid-19-impairments/ Brattle Principal Bin Zhou and Associate Adrienna Huffman have coauthored a Law360 article that uses the Great Recession as a lens through which to examine the types of securities litigation that may arise because of goodwill impairments recognized following the COVID-19 pandemic and the related market downturn.

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Brattle Principal Bin Zhou and Associate Adrienna Huffman have coauthored a Law360 article that uses the Great Recession as a lens through which to examine the types of securities litigation that may arise because of goodwill impairments recognized following the COVID-19 pandemic and the related market downturn.

In the article, “Securities Litigation Implications of COVID-19 Impairments,” the authors note that there will likely be an uptick in goodwill impairments as the pandemic continues to affect the global economy. Based on the aftermath of the Great Recession, market-driven impairments are unlikely to yield successful plaintiff claims, especially if other companies in the same industry are impairing goodwill. However, if plaintiffs can show that a company intentionally delayed or hid the recognition of a goodwill impairment, for example, to protect senior management’s personal or financial circumstances, they might have more success.

The full article, “Securities Litigation Implications of COVID-19 Impairments,” is available below.

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Brattle Experts Author Article on Quantitative Materiality Assessment Methods https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/brattle-experts-author-article-on-quantitative-materiality-assessment-methods/ https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/brattle-experts-author-article-on-quantitative-materiality-assessment-methods/#respond Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:13:59 +0000 https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/news/how-to-assess-accounting-materiality-amid-economic-crisis/ Brattle Principal Bin Zhou, Associate Adrienna Huffman, and Senior Associate Chi Cheng have published a Law360 article that uses a new dataset to show how experts could potentially use data-driven quantitative methods to assess accounting materiality in accounting materiality disputes.

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Assessing materiality, an important accounting and legal concept, is often a key inquiry in financial accounting investigations and litigation. For years, materiality assessments were considered to be subjective, as the line between financial statement restatements and revisions – or material accounting errors and immaterial accounting errors – can be blurry.

Brattle Principal Bin Zhou, Associate Adrienna Huffman, and Senior Associate Chi Cheng have published a Law360 article that uses a new dataset to show how experts could potentially use data-driven quantitative methods to assess accounting materiality in accounting materiality disputes.

A December 2019 The Wall Street Journal article revealed a decade-long trend that more companies have been revising and fewer companies have been restating their financial statements. The new dataset that the article references now allows accounting professionals and litigators to use quantitative methods, in addition to qualitative methods, to help evaluate materiality. The three methods proposed by the Brattle authors are: a pure comparables approach, a regression-based prediction model of the revision versus restatement decision, and a regression-based model of predicted stock price reaction.

The full article, “How To Assess Accounting Materiality Amid Economic Crisis,” is located below.

View Article

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Brattle Experts Author Article on Types of Litigation That May Arise as a Result of COVID-19 https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/brattle-experts-author-article-on-types-of-litigation-that-may-arise-as-a-result-of-covid-19/ https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/brattle-experts-author-article-on-types-of-litigation-that-may-arise-as-a-result-of-covid-19/#respond Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:13:56 +0000 https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/news/coronavirus-covid-19-may-bring-litigation-fever/ Brattle Principal Adoria Lim and Associate Jack Turner have authored an article on the types of litigation that may arise as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

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Brattle Principal Adoria Lim and Associate Jack Turner have authored an article on the types of litigation that may arise as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. The authors note that while we are already seeing the devastating human cost of COVID-19, its lasting economic impact, and the ensuing litigation, will take time to fully emerge. However, there are clues as to where commercial business litigation may start in the first instance.

One of the very first signs of global economic stress was the disruption in global supply chains. These disruptions could result in breach of supply contract claims by aggrieved purchasers.

The mounting losses for businesses as a result of supply chain disruptions and reduced economic activity could mean that some businesses will look to their insurance companies for coverage of business interruption losses, which will likely lead to coverage disputes.

As for the companies that are unable to sustain themselves during this period of business interruption and economic stress, they will likely default on their corporate debt or file for bankruptcy. Both of those scenarios can generate lawsuits.

The stock market, which has begun to feel the effects of the global economic stress, has also become extremely volatile. Stock market declines generally lead to investor losses, which can in turn lead to investor lawsuits.

The full economic impact of COVID-19 still remains to be seen, but a worldwide recession would inevitably lead to many different areas of litigation.

View Article

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Introduction to Capital Structure & Liability Management https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/introduction-to-capital-structure-liability-management/ https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/introduction-to-capital-structure-liability-management/#respond Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:13:18 +0000 https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/news/introduction-to-capital-structure-liability-management/ View Presentation

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Adoria Lim and Chi Cheng to Participate in Webinar on Preparing for the SEC’s Financial Fraud Probes https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/events/adoria-lim-and-chi-cheng-to-participate-in-webinar-on-preparing-for-the-secs-financial-fraud-probes/ https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/events/adoria-lim-and-chi-cheng-to-participate-in-webinar-on-preparing-for-the-secs-financial-fraud-probes/#respond Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:10:53 +0000 https://www.brattle.com/insights-events/news/adoria-lim-and-chi-cheng-to-participate-in-webinar-on-preparing-for-the-secs-financial-fraud-probes/ Brattle Principal Adoria Lim and Associate Chi Cheng will participate in the webinar, “Preparing for the SEC’s Financial Fraud Probes: What Companies Need to Know,” which will take place on August 7, 12:00–1:00 p.m. (ET). 

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Brattle Principal Adoria Lim and Associate Chi Cheng will participate in the webinar, “Preparing for the SEC’s Financial Fraud Probes: What Companies Need to Know,” which will take place August 7, 12:00–1:00 p.m. (ET).

The panel will discuss a 2019 perspective on the SEC’s financial fraud probes, emerging financial crime threats, and practical strategies to effectively deal with SEC probes.

Ms. Lim and Dr. Cheng will provide an in-depth analysis of the fundamentals, as well as recent developments, in the SEC’s financial fraud probes. They will also share best practices and effective preparatory tools to help business and organizations avoid potential risks and pitfalls.

To learn more or to register, please visit the event website.

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