Financial Expertise for Every Phase of Class Action Litigation
Class actions demand more than a damages number. They require financial analysis that holds up at certification, survives Daubert challenges, and communicates clearly to judges and juries. MSG’s credentialed forensic accountants and damages experts work alongside plaintiffs’ and defendants’ counsel to provide the rigorous financial analysis that class action matters require.
Whether the dispute involves consumer fraud, shareholder claims, wage and hour violations, or product liability, our team brings the same forensic discipline to class-wide financial questions that we apply to individual-party litigation with the analytical capacity to handle voluminous transactional data across large plaintiff classes
Certification often turns on whether common financial questions can be resolved on a class-wide basis. At this stage, we help counsel demonstrate or challenge the viability of aggregate damages models by analyzing whether a reliable, common methodology exists to quantify harm across all class members.
Our work at the certification stage typically includes analysis of commonality and predominance of financial injury, evaluation of proposed damages methodologies for class-wide applicability, identification of individualized issues that may defeat certification, and review of transactional data to assess the feasibility of aggregate measurement. The goal is a clear, defensible opinion on whether financial damages can or cannot be calculated using a common framework.
Quantifying class-wide damages requires building a credible “but-for” model what would have happened absent the alleged wrongful conduct and then measuring the difference against what actually occurred. Our team constructs these models using accepted methodologies, transparent assumptions, and the factual record developed in discovery.
We regularly quantify damages in matters involving overcharges and price inflation attributable to deceptive practices, lost income and benefits in employment class actions, diminished business value or investment losses in shareholder and securities matters, out-of-pocket losses and benefit-of-the-bargain damages in consumer fraud claims, and disgorgement or unjust enrichment calculations. Each model is built to withstand cross-examination. We document every assumption, explain every judgment call, and tie every conclusion to the underlying data.
Many class actions rest on allegations of financial misconduct: inflated revenues, concealed liabilities, manipulated pricing, misallocated costs, or undisclosed related-party transactions. Our forensic accountants examine the underlying financial records to determine what actually happened and trace the flow of funds to identify how and where class members were harmed.
This investigative work often proves critical for both sides. For plaintiffs’ counsel, it builds the factual foundation for damages theories. For defendants, it can reveal that the alleged misconduct did not cause the financial harm claimed, or that the class’s damages model rests on faulty assumptions about the company’s actual financial practices.
Not every class action goes to trial. When cases move toward resolution, our team provides the financial analysis that informs settlement negotiations and allocation decisions. This includes evaluating the reasonableness of proposed settlement amounts relative to provable damages and developing allocation methodologies to distribute settlement funds among class members based on their proportional harm.