Michael D. Pakter

Michael D. Pakter, CPA, CFF, CGMA, CFE, CVA, MAFF, CA, CIRA, CDBV, Managing Member of Gould & Pakter Associates LLC, provides consulting and litigation support services to trial lawyers, trustees, receivers, their clients, business owners and managers, and state and local government.

Mr. Pakter focuses on financial analysis, forensic accounting, economic damages determination, valuation issues and financial investigations. He has experience in financial forensics, determining lost profits, insurance, earn-outs, analyzing financial transactions and balances, fair value issues and reconstruction of falsified and/or incomplete financial information.

Mr. Pakter's education includes bachelor of commerce and bachelor of accountancy degrees, bankruptcy mediation certificate program, construction management certificate program, continuing education classes, and several professional certifications.

Services

Gould & Pakter Associates, LLC
• Provides financial forensics, commercial litigation services, investigations and dispute resolution services.
• Calculates economic damages, lost profits, lost earnings, business interruption claims and earn-outs.
• Values closely held businesses for shareholder litigation, family law services, bankruptcy and business litigation and estate
and gift tax compliance.
• Traces undisclosed assets, analyzing financial transactions/balances, determines sources of funds used to acquire assets and
reconstructs falsified/incomplete financial information.

- Accounting & Financial Analysis
• Provides forensic accounting and financial analyses to determine contract compliance, earn-outs, business performance and free cash flows, cost accounting and allocation of revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities.
• Performs in-depth accounting and financial analyses of complex and/or disputed account balances and classes of transactions, determines financial condition, analyzes accounting books and records and performs Court-ordered accountings.
• Develops case specific indicia of alter ego to be evaluated by the factfinder in considering whether to pierce a corporate veil, including undercapitalization, intertwining, commingling, solvency and the substance of transactions versus their form.

- Asset Tracing
• Provides trial lawyers and clients with tracing analyses to determine the sources of funds used to acquire identified assets which analyses are used by family law courts to determine the marital or non-marital character of identified assets.
• Assist legal counsel locate unreported or hidden assets by analyzing the flows of monies into and out of business entities' bank statements.
Assist bankruptcy counsel evaluate preferences, fraudulent transfers and other voidable transfer analyses and/or other potential “claw back” transactions.

- Bankruptcy
• Provides legal counsel, receivers, examiners, trustees and the debtors or creditors they represent with bankruptcy and reorganization services, primarily in litigating core proceedings and focusing on forensic examinations of material transactions, solvency analyses, evaluating plan feasibility and determining preferences, fraudulent transfers and other voidable transfers.
• Values distressed companies, evaluates debtor's cash flow projections and plans of reorganization, analyzes the debtor's pending claims, operating results and/or solvency prior to and/or resulting from specific transactions.
• Determines the relationships between entities that are affiliated, related and/or under common ownership and describes indicia that these entities did or did not function jointly to promote their respective businesses; contributed property, commingled money and/or services; shared gains and/or losses; had such unity of interest and ownership that the entities and/or their individual shareholders no longer had separate personalities.

- Business Valuation
• Provides business valuations and calculations of value for family law proceedings, shareholder dissent actions, bankruptcy litigation and estate and gift tax compliance.
• Values established, start up and distressed, closely held middle market businesses and partnerships including, when appropriate, involving the allocation of personal and enterprise goodwill.

- Commercial Litigation Services
• Supports trial lawyers and their clients in several phases of the commercial litigation or alternative dispute resolution process, including aspects of pleadings, document review, data management, discovery and e-discovery, investigations, deposition preparation, trial preparation and class action administration.
• Identifies key documents, determines critical issues, suggests lines of inquiry, prepares actual and demonstrative exhibits and assembles deposition and trial binders.

- Economic Damages
• Determines damages in commercial litigation, including contract disputes, franchise arbitrations and professional malpractice claims as well as intellectual property infringement damages.
• Calculates damages from personal injury, wrongful death, employment-related and non-employment-related litigation involving individuals.
Evaluate business interruption claims and other insurance-related claims arising from property damage, arson, theft, natural disasters and other insured and non-insured events.

- Financial Investigations
• Conducts financial investigations to investigate and report financial irregularities, employee and/or officer misconduct and fraudulent financial transactions and activities by performing streamlined risk-based procedures, identifying key issues, accounting and financial analysis, evidence gathering and conducting whistleblower, owner, management and other interviews.
• Performs fraud examination procedures to analyze records, describe and quantify fraud losses, assemble proofs of claim and assist management to establish and implement internal controls to safeguard corporate assets against unauthorized use or disposition.
• Reports procedures and findings regarding the nature, timing and extent of fraudulent financial transactions, false claims and/or fraud for use by management, legal counsel and/or Courts of Law and reconstruct incomplete and/or misstated accounting books and records to restore proper financial reporting reflecting true financial condition.

- Forensic Accounting
• Provides trial lawyers and their clients with forensic accounting services, financial analyses and court-ordered accountings, focusing on complex multiple- entity, multi-year business disputes and tracing of sources and uses of funds.
• Analyzes, interprets and summarizes revenues, costs, assets, liability and/or equity account balances and classes of transactions in diverse engagements and industries to assist factfinders resolve litigated and arbitrated disputes.
• Combines the accounting, auditing, valuation and investigative skills of its Managing Members and Associates to analyze the finances, accounting, transactions and values of individuals, businesses or units of state and local government in formats suitable to be used in legal proceedings.

- Reconstruction of Accounting Books & Records
• Review and analyze monthly lifestyle expenses, investigate financial transactions, identify missing transactions, determine the extent to which accounting books and records were/were not properly maintained.
• Reconstructs misstated, incomplete and/or falsified accounting books and records, research proper GAAP, GAAS and OCBOA treatment of transactions and evaluates the propriety of financial reporting and/or disclosures.
• Develop cost accounting methodologies and internal control structures, apply cost accounting principles to recompute manufacturing labor and overhead rates, verify in-house and outsourced material component costs and allocate job-costs of a capital nature.

Litigation Support Services

Provide trial lawyers and their clients with review, analysis and support in all phases of the commercial and civil litigation process to assist with discovery, analysis and/or preparation for deposition and trial. Focus on assembling deposition and trial binders concerning financial analysis, evaluating material financial transactions and the conduct of directors, offices, employees and professional advisors.

Areas of Expertise

Additional Expertise:

Fraud Investigation

Profile

Michael D. Pakter focuses his professional practice on forensic accounting, economic damages, financial analyses, distressed businesses, fraud/financial investigations, business valuation, business economics and litigation support services. He has provided expert services in matters involving accounting, lost profits/earnings, insurance claims interruption, breach of contract, audit failure, analysis of financial transactions/balances, alter ego, bankruptcy, fraud, accounting books and records and the reconstruction of incomplete, misstated and/or falsified financial information.

Mr. Pakter provides consulting and dispute avoidance/resolution services to trial lawyers, trustees, examiners, receivers, business owners and managers and units of federal, state, and local government. Many engagements combine complex financial analysis, economic damages, valuation, and distressed business issues, often involving applying many professional disciplines to assist in resolving complex commercial litigation and business disputes.

Mr. Pakter has more than 45 years of experience in accounting and forensic accounting, business economics and investigations in numerous industries and diverse engagements, including more than 25 years of experience in economic damages and business valuations. State, Federal and Bankruptcy Courts, as well as arbitrators, have recognized him as an expert in accounting, forensic accounting, economic damages, financial analysis, business valuation and business economics. He has served as a Rule 213(f)3 expert witness, a Rule 30(b)(6) witness and a Rule 1006 witness.

Areas Served

All States as well as Federal, State and Local Governments.

Michael D. Pakter in the Social Networks

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Professional Experience

Gould & Pakter Associates, LLC
Managing Member (2004 - present)

Russell Novak & Company, LLP
Partner (2000 - 2004); Principal (1998 - 1999)

Rome Associates LLP
Principal (1996 - 1998)

Altschuler, Melvoin and Glasser
Manager/Senior Manager, Litigation (1991 - 1996); Supervisor/Manager, Review and Technical Guidance (1986 - 1991)

Sussman & Goddard
Manager, Accounting and Auditing; Manager, Technical and Training (1985 - 1986)

Macsteel Group of Companies
Corporate Treasurer/Corporate Secretary, (1982 to 1985)

SADF Directorate of Internal Auditing
Accounting, Auditing, Financial Analysis and Fraud Detection, (1980 to 1982)

Schwartz Fine & Company/Arthur Andersen Worldwide
Accounting, Auditing and Financial Analysis, (1977 to 1980)

For illustrative purposes only, Mr. Pakter's expertise in financial analysis is described in the following areas:

- Economic Damages - Lost profits/earnings; business interruption; actual, compensatory and other economic damages

- Commercial Litigation Support - Discovery assistance; deposition/trial binders; testimony; litigation support

- Forensic Accounting - Financial forensics; analysis of transactions/balances; reconstructing accounting books/records

- Bankruptcy/Distressed Businesses - Fraudulent conveyances; solvency; preferences; plan feasibility

- Investigations - Internal corporate investigations; fraud detection; financial reporting irregularities; employee misconduct

- Valuation Analysis - Contractual disputes; claims; distressed businesses; turnarounds; bankruptcy core proceedings

- Accounting Analysis - Accounting books and records; internal controls; business processes; business performance

- Intellectual Property/Franchise - Copyright/trademark infringement; use of likeness; royalty audits; projections

- Real Estate/Construction - Landlord/tenant disputes; costs of construction; common area expenses; real estate developers

- Wholesale/Retail - Benchmarks; earn outs; inventory; forecasts; financial condition/performance

- Manufacturing/Distribution/Transportation - Cost accounting; charge backs; expense categorization/reduction

- Federal/State/Local Government - Vendor audits; program revenues/costs; false claims

Licenses

Certifications:

Chartered Global Management Accountant (2012)
Certified Valuation Analyst (2011)
Master Analyst in Financial Forensics (2009)
Certified in Financial Forensics (2008)
Certified in Distressed Business Valuation (2006)
Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Advisor (2002)
Certified Fraud Examiner (1994)
Certified Public Accountant (1988)
Chartered Accountant (1980)

Legal Experience & Services

• Establish a company had excessive levels of debt, insufficient operating cash flows to service debts and negative net worth before the alleged improper termination of a key agreement; that its financial condition was worse than comparable companies and industry benchmarks; that it had a high risk of business failure; and that its eventual self-liquidation was not the result of the agreement termination.
• Engaged by public company's legal counsel to evaluate merits of contemplated litigation against its Big Four CPA firm for alleged audit failures resulting in restatement of financial statements and decline in its share price. Conducted detailed analyses of GAAP and GAAS relating to significant misstatements in the company's financial condition and results of operations and deficiencies in its internal controls.
• Determine that Corporate Defendants existed as separate entities with distinct business purposes, followed proper procedures regarding separate accounting records, properly disclosed distributions and segregated revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities. Establish that funds were not commingled, debts were paid as they fell due until business activities ceased and assets were used to pay liabilities.
• Perform financial analysis regarding the nature, form and substance of a merger and related transactions for a dispute focused on the entity's assets, conditions precedent in the merger agreement and funds no longer available in the entity's treasury after the merger. Render opinions as to the form and substance of the merger and that the transaction resulted in a wrongful dividend.
• Assist counsel for a large diversified public company to evaluate the merits of claims against prior auditors, directors and officers under Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Investment Company Act of 1940, PCAOB Standards, GAAP and GAAS. Perform detailed analyses of specific financial transactions and balances and evaluated whether the prior auditors performed their work with the requisite standard of due care.
• Evaluate company documents, SEC reports, accountant's work product and analysts' files in a Section 10(b) 5 securities litigation. Provide counsel with financial analysis and discovery concerning the directors' and officers' knowledge of material misrepresentations to the market during the class period.
• Assist a national accountants' malpractice insurance carrier, and its counsel and claims specialists, to assess the merits of claims brought against accountants. Evaluate and report on work product of over 50 public accounting firms and assisted the insurance carrier to reduce liability risks through educational programming.
• Estimate lost revenues that would be sustained to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Performed financial analysis with market surveys to determine financial impact on the service provider.
• Determine and testify that auditors failed to follow due professional care in the course of its engagement. Review all discovery in the litigation, including auditors' deposition transcripts and working papers to identify specific GAAS failures.
• Determine and testify that auditors exercised the requisite skill and ordinary care and properly complied with GAAS. Investigate, conclude and testify that audited company's financial statements were not misstated and that all disclosures were adequate and proper.

Affiliations

National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (NACVA) Practitioner Member; Assistant Editor (National Litigation Consultants' Review 2013-2016); Editorial Board (QuickRead); Editorial Board (The Value Examiner); Litigation Forensics Board (2012-2014, 2017-2020, 2022-Present); Foundations of Financial Forensics Instructor; Instructor of Exceptional Distinction (2012+2020); Outstanding Member Award (2015); and MAFF (Bankruptcy, Insolvency and Restructuring Track) Instructor
Illinois CPA Society (ICPAS) Member; Past President (North Shore Chapter); Member, Ethics Committee (1991-1995); Chair,
Fraud Conference (2005-2009); Member, Accounting Principles Committee (2010-2012); Chair, Forensic Accounting
Conference/Workshop (2010-2013); and Member, Healthcare Compliance & Fraud Conference (2016-2017)
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Member, Forensic and Valuation Services (“FVS”) Section; and
Private Companies Practice Section (“PCPS”)
Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) Member and Past President (Chicago Chapter); 25 Year Pin
Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors (AIRA) Member
Chicago International Dispute Resolution Association (CIDRA) Treasurer
Financial Poise Faculty

Qualifications

Mr. Pakter has more than 49 years of experience in financial analysis, financial forensics, accounting and internal investigations in diverse engagements and numerous industries. He has participated in public hearings and alternative dispute resolutions, submitted expert reports in several jurisdictions and testified in arbitrations, regulatory proceedings and State, Federal and Bankruptcy Courts.

Mr. Pakter has been recognized by courts and arbitral bodies as an expert in financial analysis.

Seminars & Training

Please see website.

Publications

Please see website.

Education

Bachelor of Commerce - Witwatersrand University, South Africa (1974-1976)
Bachelor of Accountancy - Witwatersrand University, South Africa (1977-1979)
Bankruptcy Mediation Certificate Program - DePaul University (2000)
Construction Management Certificate Program - DePaul University (2007)
Continuing Education - including AICPA, ICPAS, ACFE, AIRA, NACVA (1986 - present)