Commercial Disputes and Arbitrations
A. Commercial Disputes
Our commercial dispute offering embodies four core concepts:
Using our extensive experience in acting as an expert in disputes we can advise you on the financial, economic, valuation and quantum aspects of a case.
From across the firm, we have drawn together experts and technical specialists from various industries that are able to act in an advisory or expert role. Members of the Forensics Services team work alongside these experts, bringing our exceptional dispute expertise and experience to bear for you and your client’s benefit. This enables you to use the most appropriate industry expert, technical expert, valuation expert, economist or actuary in your dispute, relying on our extensive forensic expertise and experience to ensure evidence is presented effectively and efficiently.
Summary of our key industry expertise (69K PDF)
Our forensic services partners and directors and many of our identified experts have given evidence on many occasions in the High Court and in other courts, as well as in arbitration hearings and other forums; both in India and overseas.
With the largest network of forensic practices in the world, spanning 63 countries and employing over 1,400 specialists, PricewaterhouseCoopers Forensic Services can draw on vast experiences of dealing with contentious situations requiring commercial disputes expertise across a broad spectrum of industries in multiple jurisdictions. We can also draw on the depth and breadth of PricewaterhouseCoopers global industry and technical expertise to identify the best experts for your issue.
B. Arbitration Support
Our arbitration team provides accounting, financial and economic consulting, as well as expert witness services, to parties in arbitration proceedings involving complex business disputes.
We can help both clients and their legal advisers to investigate and understand the financial, economic and business consequences of a dispute, including breach of contract and construction disputes, acquisition disputes and claims under investment treaties.
Our accountants, investigators financial and industry experts can condense, analyse and interpret significant volumes of data and present complex financial and technical findings clearly.
We have provided evidence in ad hoc and institutional arbitration proceedings around the world involving major arbitral bodies.
How we can support you
Potential issues
You face the following:
- A contract in which the dispute resolution mechanism stipulates international arbitration rather than litigation
- A dispute with a party from a different country
- A claim against a sovereign state or state owned entity that needs to be resolved by international arbitration
- A need to investigate and analyse a claim in a country using local knowledge of business/accounting practice
- A claim for loss of investment against a sovereign state under an investment treaty.
- Initial case assessment – objectively reviewing the merits of a claimant's or defendant's position from a financial standpoint, and providing an assessment of the possible recovery and exposure
- Strategy development - identifying key issues and the most appropriate strategy from a financial standpoint to analyse the claim.
- Disclosure/Discovery - identifying the documents that will provide the information relevant to the claim. Our forensic technology capability enables us to search electronic records, including e-mails
- Expert technical analysis - financial, accounting, economic or engineering analysis to support the liability and damages issues of the dispute
- Communication of the results - reporting on the results in writing, through graphical presentation or oral evidence. Knowledge of local customs and language can enhance the persuasiveness of these arguments
- Expert witness services - many of our partners and directors have given evidence in arbitration proceedings, trials and other hearings
- Tribunal appointed expert/tribunal member - we have acted as experts appointed by the tribunal.
C. Transaction and Shareholder Disputes
We offer a range of services in connection with the acquisition and disposal of businesses, and with disputes between shareholders and joint venture partners.
Leveraging our expertise of resolving transaction disputes, before an agreement is signed, we can advise on the drafting of robust completion accounts or earn out mechanisms and processes. We assist in reducing ambiguity in the accounting aspects of purchase price adjustments and help minimise the risk of disputes arising post-deal. We also help to maximise the deal value during the completion accounts preparation process by advising on how terms of agreements can be used to full advantage.
We assist post-completion, whether advising parties in undertaking warranty compliance reviews and assisting with consequential warranty claims or in making submissions to an independent expert. Several of our team regularly act as independent expert in such disputes. We also have considerable experience in transaction related misrepresentation and professional negligence claims.
In addition to assisting with the accounting aspects of transactions our corporate investigations team undertakes forensic due diligence on target companies and individuals prior to the completion of deals. For transactions involving regulated entities, we have a team of specialists who can review compliance with anti-money laundering regulations.
Our shareholder dispute services help to resolve disputes between shareholders and joint venture partners. Such disputes may arise, for example, as a result of differences of opinion concerning contractual liabilities, suspected fraud or negligence and minority prejudice actions.
How we can support you
Potential issues
- You have inadequate or ambiguous accounting definitions in an agreement
- You need advice on what is to be included/excluded from the completion accounts or earn out accounts
- There is a lack of clarity in the roles of each party and their advisers in the preparation, review and finalisation of these accounts
- You need help in preparing submissions to the independent accountant or answering an independent accountant's questions, whether in writing or at oral hearings
- You need advice in disputes between joint venture partners or shareholders
- You want to evaluate the strength of claims and counter-claims and develop arguments to support your position
- You need to assess whether a breach of warranty has occurred and/or quantify the loss flowing from that breach.
- Review of sale and purchase agreements prior to completion
- Assist in drafting effective price adjustment mechanisms and advise on financial warranties in the draft sale and purchase agreement
- Advice on accounting aspects of contracts, including identifying allowable adjustments and reviewing and/or challenging other party adjustments
- Act as the independent accountant in determining completion accounts disputes
- Providing advice and testimony on liability and causation issues in accountants' negligence matters
- Assistance with mediation or in arbitration proceedings, including preparing disagreement notifications and negotiations with other parties
- Acting as expert accounting witness in litigation.
For further information
on how we can help you
please contact:
Contacts
Sharat Bansal
Executive Director
Tel: +91 22 6669 1538
Vidya Rajarao
Leader, Forensic Services
Tel: +91 80 4079 7002
