IIC, Inc. has previously been engaged to determine possible damages arising from undervaluation of federal and Indian royalty oil.
In a recent engagement, we provided an expert report and conclusions for the purpose of litigation. We examined thousands of crude oil and condensate transactions of oil companies during the late 1980s and 1990s. Upon completion of our review, we constructed a transaction database to assess the fair market value and possible underpayments pertaining to federal and Indian royalty oil. Utilizing our extensive knowledge of the domestic petroleum industry and our expertise in managing large, transactional databases, we provided our client with a comprehensive written report detailing the results of our analyses. In addition to providing our client with a summary of issues regarding liability, we included our determination of the true fair market value of the crude oil at issue. At the request of our client, we performed an exhaustive critique and analysis of other industry experts' conclusions regarding the fair market value of the crude oil and condensate, including their determination of possible damages.

For a law firm representing the City of Long Beach and the State of California, IIC, Inc. provided economic research and analysis of pricing behavior of several major oil companies in the West Coast petroleum market.
In addition, IIC, Inc. computed damages suffered by the City and State as a result of alleged anti-competitive activities and the breach of contract by the major oil companies producing oil from a field in southern California where the city and state had ownership interests. Our analyses included review of hundreds of transactions from the 1980s to assess whether posted prices reflected fair market value, developing a method for computing a fair market value for California crude oil to calculate damages based on the market price of the marginal supply in that market, and evaluating supply and demand factors in the California petroleum market. IIC, Inc. also provided extensive litigation support services, which included maintaining a comprehensive database of all the documents produced in the case, maintaining a database of oil contract data for use in various analyses, and identifying deposition and cross examination issues for the client to use with defendants' experts and oil company personnel.

IIC, Inc. has provided expert testimony on issues related to financial and economic damages for a variety of different clients.
For example, we provided expert testimony on the damages suffered by the owner of a marina as a result of a gasoline spill. IIC, Inc. analyzed various economic losses, including lost profits, loss of goodwill, and interruption of the business of the marina. We demonstrated that many of the claimed losses were not attributable to the spill and that other claims were highly speculative and inconsistent with the financial operating data of the marina.

Analysis of claims of monopoly and anticompetitive behavior require proper delineation of product and geographic markets as well as analysis of market shares, barriers to entry, and pricing practices within such markets.
IIC, Inc. has applied the tools of antitrust analysis in many settings, among them the analysis of pricing and distribution of window coverings. IIC, Inc. defined the relevant product and geographic markets for window coverings, a differentiated market, and showed that there were substantial entry barriers to the distribution and retail sale of such products. One firm accounted for a major share of the manufacture and distribution of this product that put other firms at a competitive disadvantage. During the discovery process, IIC, Inc. revealed further evidence of possible price manipulation through review and analysis of relevant documents. IIC, Inc. provided the framework for evaluating the potential antitrust violations and also estimated the potential losses to a distributor/retailer.

The issue of the economic value of an individual's earnings potential often arises in the context of lawsuits involving personal injury and wrongful death.
IIC, Inc. has provided expert testimony and damage calculations related to such claims for both plaintiffs and defendants in many lawsuits. IIC, Inc. provides a reasoned, well-accepted approach to these analyses and is very familiar with the different approaches applied by forensic economists.

Although some industries have recently witnessed deregulation, others remain subject to continuing regulatory oversight regarding rate design and rate setting as well as other terms and conditions related to the services provided by the regulated industry.
IIC, Inc. has provided assistance to regulatory authorities and to various private clients on both rate issues and access issues. For example, IIC, Inc. provided expert testimony before the California Public Utilities Commission regarding the rates of several crude oil pipelines that had recently been dedicated to public use. IIC, Inc. addressed both rate issues and access issues and demonstrated, based on an analysis of competing carriers' rates, that the carrier's proposed rates could not be justified as market-based and that various other policies, including the lack of a quality bank, hindered shippers' access to the pipelines.

Legal disputes are often interwoven with disputes over taxation, and frequently such disputes require economic and financial expertise to discern the impacts of various tax policies on business behavior.
IIC, Inc. has provided expert testimony on several occasions in Tax Court on issues related to transfer pricing, valuation, and hedging. In one case, IIC, Inc. provided expert testimony and litigation support as to whether an investment in an oil-producing company could be considered a "hedge" for purposes of evaluating the gain made on the sale of the investment. IIC, Inc. performed a detailed analysis of the source of the gain on the sale, whether at the time of the transaction a hedge would have been possible, and whether any other evidence from the taxpayer's records could reasonably prove that the investment was held as a hedge. The Tax Court ultimately agreed with IIC, Inc.'s analysis and found that the investment was not a hedge.

IIC, Inc. has developed various analytical tools that it has tailored to apply in many matters for different clients facing similar issues.
For example, IIC, Inc. has assisted various clients, including both governmental agencies and private firms, to determine the fair market value of crude oil produced at the lease. We developed a transaction database model to evaluate the consideration given and received on various types of transactions including the purchase, sale, and exchange of crude oil. When combined with public data, the model can compute crude oil market values for virtually any crude oil producing area in the world. Most recently, these analytical tools were applied to a study of the Montana crude oil marketplace. Our analysis focused on transaction data involving one specific type of crude oil produced in eastern Montana, and we computed the fair market value of this oil based on third-party transaction data for a 15-year period. We also applied our analytical tools to demonstrate that the conclusion of the opposing expert was without foundation, which was instrumental in the successful resolution of this matter.