Recent expert witness project experience

1. December 2017: Appointed Technical Expert by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, ICC Paris, in regard to a dispute between a Global US Manufacturing Corporation and a Sovereign State concerning transfer of undertakings and business between countries, to carry out authentication of circulation and signing of a key electronic document, necessitating identifying, verifying and examining many document creation and transmission systems, and data archives, dating back seven years. My Preliminary Report successfully assisted the Tribunal in making its determination.

2. November 2017: Shortly after completing my Expert's Report for attorneys in Midwest USA, in connection with an Arbitration of a software contract dispute involving a major US manufacturing company and an international ERP software vendor, I was informed by the attorneys that the case, with $multi-million claims, had settled, saying “I'm happy to report that we were able to resolve this dispute today. We sincerely appreciate the efforts that you put forward within a very challenging time frame. … your report was critical in getting the Claimant to reduce the amount of their claim. Thanks again for your superb work”.

3. Since October 2015: Appointed expert on behalf of Limited Liability Partnerships in connection with a dispute with HMRC in the UK, heard by the Tax Appeals Tribunal in January 2018, concerning £100m+ investments in and valuation of software packages and businesses, and capital allowance aspects thereof (I was cross-examined in court on Monday, January 22nd, 2018, with the last day of the Hearing the following day; the trial closed part-heard). The software is in financial services/stock exchange trading, and online betting and gambling, application areas. The case necessitated intensive technical effort and examination in regard to software reconstruction and re-establishing real-time software execution/operability, for systems originally developed 10+ years ago, in Asia, the USA, and Australia. This presented many significant challenges, but the systems were successfully resurrected, allowing validation of software functionality, and the carrying out of live demonstrations of online trading transactions, towards underpinning my reasoned and objectively justifiable commercial valuation of the software.

4. During the first half of 2010, I worked intensively as appointed expert on behalf of a major international energy sector company in its dispute over the quantum of damages appropriate for replacement of a Government Data Centre after its destruction in an accident for which it was liable. The claim was for over 10m. Expert audit, loss verification, capacity assessment, and careful analyses and technical refresh cycle modelling of a schedule of hundreds of items of high-end mainframe, server and datacommunications ICT equipment were carried out. A report was prepared by me and my expert consultancy team and served into Court providing professional quantitatively and commercially justified technical estimates and opinions as to the proper replacement valuation to be applied in all the circumstances. Settlement of the dispute on terms satisfactory to my client was achieved days before a trial was due to start in the English High Court. The insights achieved into the current status of the global refurbished second-user ICT market were subsequently applied by way of submissions to the Cabinet Office of HM Government, in connection with the 2010-2015 British Coalition Administration's policy initiative to cut public spending, in order to reduce the massive National Deficit, by billions of pounds per year.

5. During the second half of 2010, I was appointed expert in a high-profile IT systems contract case in the NSW Supreme Court, Sydney, Australia, concerning the failed TCard Integrated Ticketing and Transport System project there. This involved a claim for AU$90m, with a cross-claim for AU$200m+: http://www.intellectualpropertylawyers.com.au/news/2010/2/24/nsw-ticketing-fiasco-a-winner-for-lawyers/ (and see also http://www.zdnet.com.au/topic/pttc/ and http://www.smh.com.au/technology/enterprise/smartcard-operator-branded-dishonest-20100411-s0w2.html). My initial expert's report was produced in February 2011. I subsequently submitted a Further Expert Report in response to the other side's expert's report, and an 'Expert Conclave' process got underway in December 2011 towards producing our Joint Agree/Disagree Report. The case was scheduled to commence trial in mid-February 2012, but has recently settled:

http://m.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/tcard-battle-settled-out-of-court-20120217-1tegm.html

http://www.bankingday.com/nl06_news_selected.php?act=2stream=1selkey=12807hlc=2hlw=

6. Commencing early 2011 I directed a CASTELL Senior Associate Consultant, a leading University Professor of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), provided by CASTELL Consulting and involved as advising expert to a major long-term patent dispute between two of the world's leading aero-engine manufacturers (USA and European) concerning swept fan blades, applying and assessing CFD analyses, methodologies and computational results. This dispute, as to the validity and possible infringement of the patent(s) concerned, was expected to come to trial in the English High Court in autumn 2011; however the case settled a few weeks earlier.