Econic Partners is pleased to announce a major expansion of its Finance practice with the addition of Mark Zmijewski, the Charles T. Horngren Professor Emeritus at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, alongside finance professionals Nicholas Weir, Keith Bockus, Erik Himan, Pavel Nikolov, and Kevin Cuddy.
Professor Zmijewski joins Econic Partners as a Senior Consultant and brings decades of expertise in financial economics, valuation, financial accounting, and complex financial disputes. Widely recognized for his work at the intersection of finance, accounting, and economic analysis, his consulting experience spans mergers and acquisitions, securities litigation, bankruptcy, solvency, damages, due diligence, revenue recognition, and financial reporting issues across a broad range of industries.
His experience includes work relating to matters involving NASCAR, the American Express Global Business Travel-CWT merger, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s proposed acquisition of Juniper Networks, among many others. He has also advised on antitrust matters involving merger efficiencies and rates of return analysis, further strengthening Econic Partners’ ability to integrate sophisticated financial and economic expertise across litigation, regulatory, and transactional matters.
Joining alongside Professor Zmijewski are Chicago-based finance experts Keith Bockus, Erik Himan, Pavel Nikolov, and Kevin Cuddy. Having worked together for decades, this group brings a high degree of familiarity, complementary expertise and experience across valuation, financial analysis, financial distress, damages, regulatory proceedings, securities litigation, mergers and acquisitions, antitrust, and complex business disputes.
Mr. Weir joins Econic Partners as a Partner and brings more than four decades of professional experience in commodities, securities, and derivative markets, including trading in both exchange-traded regulated and unregulated over-the-counter environments. He leads a large team focused on consulting and expert testimony relating to both domestic and international trading and investment activity. His deep experience includes expert testimony and consulting in hundreds of complex matters, with extensive involvement in litigation in the US, Europe and Asia relating to international tax dividend arbitrage issues, including “cum-ex” and “cum-cum” securities trading. He has also testified before the SEC, CFTC, NYSE, NFA, CBOT, CME, CBOE, as well as numerous courts and regulatory bodies.
Collectively, these additions further strengthen Econic Partners’ ability to provide integrated economic and financial analysis across litigation, regulatory, and transactional matters worldwide.
Jon Orszag, a Founding Partner of Econic Partners, said, “We are thrilled to welcome Mark, Nick, and their colleagues to Econic Partners, who will help us continue to strengthen our ability to serve our clients – especially on finance-related matters. We look forward to working with them to continue our plan to build the best economic consulting firm possible.”
Mark Zmijewski said, “The opportunity to join Econic Partners alongside such a strong and experienced team was tremendously compelling. I look forward to helping build a leading Finance practice that integrates sophisticated financial and economic analysis across litigation, transactional, and regulatory matters.”
Biographies of Econic’s Recently Hired Experts:
Mark Zmijewski
Dr. Zmijewski is Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and specializes in financial economics, valuation, and accounting issues. His consulting experience spans mergers and acquisitions, securities litigation, damages, bankruptcy, solvency, due diligence, interest rates, revenue recognition, and financial analysis matters across numerous industries. He has also advised on antitrust matters involving merger efficiencies and pricing competitiveness.
Nicholas Weir
Mr. Weir brings decades of experience in commodities, securities, and derivative products markets, including both regulated and unregulated trading environments. He has significant consulting experience in matters involving allegations of market manipulation, improper risk management, anticompetitive trading practices, spoofing, quote stuffing, benchmark manipulation, and other antitrust-related issues across financial markets.
Keith Bockus
Dr. Bockus specializes in financial economics, valuation, and financial accounting across a broad range of industries, including financial services, transportation, pharmaceuticals, consumer products, entertainment, and online services. He has extensive experience advising on shareholder disputes, securities fraud, insider trading, solvency, breach of contract, and antitrust matters.
Erik Himan
Mr. Himan brings more than 20 years of experience applying economic and quantitative methods to complex business litigation matters. His expertise includes business valuation, solvency analysis, securities litigation, damages assessment, material adverse effects, and antitrust issues related to merger efficiencies, synergies, and anticompetitive conduct.
Pavel Nikolov
Mr. Nikolov specializes in financial modeling and analyses, valuation, solvency, and damages across a wide range of industries. He has more than 20 years of experience in litigation and regulatory matters involving appraisals, breach of fiduciary duty and contracts, bankruptcy, fraudulent conveyance, insider trading, material adverse effects and other post-merger disputes, alleged financial misstatements, and wrongful disclosures.
Kevin Cuddy
Mr. Cuddy specializes in applying quantitative methods to inform and support expert witness opinions on issues around securities trading, valuation, finance, and accounting. He has significant experience working on cases involving disputes about market manipulation, insider trading, market microstructure, tax and regulatory arbitrage, the nature and suitability of trading strategies, and the efficiency and reliability of market data.
