DHL Corporation and Subsidiaries - Page 30

                                        - 118 -                                       
          to a present value.  That approach does not serve to assist the             
          Court in measuring whether the parties were at arm’s length                 
          and/or whether the value they used was a “fair market value”.               
          Petitioners’ expert’s approach to valuation begs the question and           
          is fatally flawed.                                                          
               We are not constrained to follow the opinion of any expert             
          when the opinion is contrary to our own judgment.  We may adopt             
          or reject expert testimony, whichever in our judgment is most               
          appropriate.  Helvering v. National Grocery Co., 304 U.S. 282,              
          295 (1938); Silverman v. Commissioner, 538 F.2d 927, 933 (2d Cir.           
          1976), affg. T.C. Memo. 1974-285.  We are not limited to choosing           
          the opinion of one expert over another but may extract relevant             
          findings from each in reaching our own conclusions.  Chiu v.                
          Commissioner, 84 T.C. 722, 734 (1985).                                      
               Although respondent’s experts’ approaches were more                    
          reasonable in terms of the rates used, we do not agree that the             
          value they have determined can be isolated as being attributable            
          to the trademark.  In reaching that conclusion, we have, to some            
          extent, relied on petitioners’ experts, who opined that the DHL             
          network has value, over and above the stated equity, that should            
          be attributable to intangibles other than the trademark.  In                
          particular, we find persuasive the concept that the DHL network             
          enjoyed an intangible benefit from its existing infrastructure              
          and operating know-how that created a “barrier to entry” of                 
          others into the same marketplace.  That principle was borne out             




Page:  Previous  108  109  110  111  112  113  114  115  116  117  118  119  120  121  122  123  124  125  126  127  Next

Last modified: May 25, 2011