Continuing Professional Education on Business Valuation & Litigation

Tuesday, December 1, 2026, 1:00–3:00 PM ET

Measurement Data, Discount Rates, and Admissibility: Building a Lost Profits Report That Holds Up

Speakers: Mark S. Gottlieb, CPA/ABV/CFF, ASA, CVA, Reuben Gottlieb, CPA, CVA, Esq., and Megan Hanlon, CPA, CVA

Webinar Description

Every lost profits report involves three critical decisions: establishing a measurement date that determines what information the expert may consider, matching projected cash flows with an appropriate discount rate, and determining how prejudgment interest is applied to bring the damages award forward to the date of decision. This webinar will explore each of these key considerations, highlighting their impact on lost profits calculations and the development of reliable, defensible damages analyses.

Learning Objectives

Following the webinar, participants should be able to:

1. Distinguish ex ante, ex post, and hybrid measurement frameworks and identify the information each permits the expert to use.
2. Apply prejudgment interest consistently with the chosen measurement date across differing state and federal rules and recognize double recovery and double penalty errors.
3. Match a discount rate to the risk remaining in projected cash flows and demonstrate that expected cash flows at a risk-adjusted rate and certainty equivalents at the risk-free rate produce the same present value.
4. Identify the changes made by the 2023 amendment to Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and compare how Daubert and Frye jurisdictions evaluate damages testimony.
5. Evaluate a damages report for Rule 702(b) and 702(d) vulnerabilities using a pre-service audit checklist.

Handouts:

• VPS Webinar slides
• Following the webinar, attendees will have access to a video recording of the program
  

About the Presenters:

 Mark S. Gottlieb, CPA/ABV/CFF, ASA, CVA, is one of the nation’s foremost experts in business valuation, forensic accounting, and litigation support. He serves on the AICPA Forensic and Valuation Services Executive Committee, one of the most prominent leadership bodies in the accounting profession, and chairs the Business Valuation & Litigation Services Committee of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants (NYCPA). 

Named among America’s Top 100 Valuation CPAs by Forbes in 2025 and recognized on Forbes’ America’s Best-in-State CPAs list in 2026, Mark brings decades of experience and a rare depth of credentials to every engagement. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Fordham University School of Law. 

Headquartered in New York City, Mark’s practice, MSG Accountants, Consultants & Business Valuators, focuses on complex financial matters that are frequently the subject of litigation, including shareholder disputes, business dissolutions, economic damage assessments, post-merger and acquisition conflicts, matrimonial matters, and forensic accounting and fraud examinations. Courts routinely appoint Mark to serve as a neutral expert, and he is widely recognized as an expert witness, author, and lecturer across the legal and financial communities.

 Reuben Gottlieb, CPA, CVA, Esq., is a Managing Director at MSG, where he oversees forensic accounting investigations, business valuations, and economic damages analyses in complex commercial and matrimonial disputes. As a licensed attorney, Certified Public Accountant, and Certified Valuation Analyst, Reuben brings a unique combination of financial expertise and litigation experience to his work.

At MSG, Reuben conducts and supervises valuations of closely held businesses, prepares economic damages calculations, and leads forensic investigations involving allegations of fraud, asset dissipation, and financial misreporting. He is also extensively involved in expert report preparation, deposition and trial support, and the development of rebuttal analyses challenging opposing experts’ methodologies and conclusions. Reuben has provided expert testimony and regularly lectures on financial and tax matters in divorce litigation for organizations including the American Bar Association, BARBRI, Suffolk County Bar Association, and Strafford Webinars.

Prior to joining MSG, Reuben practiced as a litigation associate, representing private equity firms and public companies in complex commercial litigation and corporate governance disputes involving failed mergers, fraud, and contractual claims. This experience provides him with firsthand insight into how financial evidence is developed, presented, and challenged throughout the litigation process.

 Megan Hanlon, CPA, CVA, is a Senior Forensic and Valuation Associate at MSG, where she conducts forensic accounting investigations and business valuation engagements for complex financial disputes. Her day-to-day work centers on the detailed analytical tasks that drive litigation outcomes: reconstructing financial records from incomplete or fragmented source documents, tracing assets through layered transactions, identifying irregularities in corporate financial data, and reviewing financial statements to determine their compliance with professional standards.

Megan specializes in financial record reconstruction, transforming disorganized, incomplete, or obscured documentation into reliable financial timelines. Her asset-tracing work identifies transactional patterns across accounts and business entities that may indicate concealed or diverted funds. She also applies her auditing expertise to business valuations involving closely held companies in shareholder disputes, matrimonial matters, and commercial damages cases.

Before joining MSG, Megan worked as an audit associate at a Top Ten global accounting firm, where she focused on state and local government engagements. That public-sector audit experience gave her a disciplined approach to working within regulatory frameworks and navigating the reporting complexities of large organizations. At MSG, she applies that same discipline to forensic engagements where precision and thoroughness in financial analysis are what separate useful expert work from work that falls apart under opposing counsel’s scrutiny.