-156-
designation in business valuation issued by the American
Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He has spoken and
written on the topic of business valuation.
B. Procedure Used by the Court To Appoint Our Experts
As mentioned above, the Court for the first time appointed
experts under rule 706 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. In so
doing, the Court generally followed the following procedure.
First, in September 2000, before the commencement of trial, the
Court informed the parties’ counsel that we believed that:
(1) The cases involved a significant, complex, and novel
big-dollar issue that was widespread in the financial industry
and (2) in deciding this issue, it would be helpful to the Court
to obtain opinions from one or more experts appointed by the
Court under rule 706 of the Federal Rules of Evidence.54
One week later, the Court met with counsel to discuss the
mechanics of retaining one or more Court-appointed experts. At
that time, the Court suggested to counsel that: (1) They could
provide to the Court either separate lists or a joint list of
potential experts or (2) the Court could conduct its own
54 The Court noted that we have become all too accustomed to
hearing testimony elicited from experts that merely followed the
litigating position of the retaining party and lacked any true
benefit to the Court. E.g., Neonatology Associates, P.A. v.
Commissioner, 115 T.C. 43, 86-87 (2000), affd. 299 F.3d 221
(3d Cir. 2002); Auker v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1998-185;
Estate of Mueller v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1992-284; Jacobson
v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1989-606; cf. Laureys v.
Commissioner, 92 T.C. 101, 129 (1989).
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