Audit Expert reports
Asegi Auditores acts as independent expert in economic disputes: quantification of loss of profit and actual loss, goodwill compensation, related-party transactions, insolvency incidents and forensic analysis. We issue the expert report and confirm it before the court in civil, criminal and arbitration proceedings in Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Araba and Navarra.
What's included
- Economic, financial or accounting expert report signed by an auditor registered with the ROAC
- Reasoned quantification of the loss of profit and the actual loss claimed
- Counter-expert work: critical review of the method, the assumptions and the calculations of the opposing report
- Forensic analysis of the accounts, the supporting documentation and the cash flows
- Expert valuation of transactions between related parties and transfer pricing
- Confirmation of the report in court and response to the opposing party's cross-examination
In an economic dispute the argument is rarely about accounting in the abstract: someone claims a figure and the other party maintains that the figure is not that one. The expert report turns that discrepancy into something verifiable — explicit assumptions, a recognised method and calculations that can be redone — and the expert then defends it in court.
When you need an independent expert
We act in private disputes and in court and arbitration proceedings. In some cases the engagement arrives before the claim is filed, to find out whether the claim stands up and for what amount; in others it arrives with the proceedings already under way, to rebut the report submitted by the opposing party or to quantify what the claim set out without figures.
What we report on
- Quantification of loss of profit and actual loss.
- Agency contracts and goodwill compensation.
- Damages of contractual and non-contractual origin.
- Expert valuation and appraisal of transactions between related parties and transfer pricing.
- Breaches of, or differences in, the application of contractual clauses.
- Joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and insolvency proceedings, including insolvency incidents.
- Investigation of socio-economic offences and forensic analysis of the accounts.
Confirmation before the court
An expert report is worth whatever it withstands under questioning. We have experience in confirming our reports before the courts: the expert appears, explains the method in terms that whoever has to judge can understand and answers both the court’s questions and the opposing party’s cross-examination. A report that nobody can explain out loud is a report that is of no use.
Independence, which is the precondition
The expert is not one more lawyer for the party. Its procedural value depends on the analysis being objective and on the conclusions holding up even when they are uncomfortable for whoever commissioned them. That is why the report always leaves in plain sight the assumptions used, the sources relied on and the limits of the analysis: that is exactly what allows the court to rely on it.
Engagements from companies and from law firms
We work both for companies and for lawyers who need economic, financial or accounting support in their litigation strategy. We are part of a group that has its own legal division, so that coordination between the economic analysis and the legal approach is settled without intermediaries.
Frequently asked questions
- In which proceedings can an economic expert intervene?
- In civil, criminal, insolvency and arbitration proceedings, and also outside the courts, in private disputes between shareholders or between the parties to a contract who want to resolve them without litigation.
- Does the expert attend the hearing to defend the report?
- Yes. The expert report is confirmed before the court: the expert appears, explains the method used and answers the judge's questions and the opposing party's cross-examination.
- Can you review the expert report submitted by the opposing party?
- Yes. It is a common engagement: analysing the methodology, the assumptions and the calculations of the opposing report and documenting its technical weaknesses in writing.
- What is the difference between an expert report and a company valuation?
- A valuation estimates the value of a business or of a shareholding. An expert report answers a specific question raised in a dispute and is designed to be tested under challenge, even though it sometimes contains a valuation within it.