Derivatives Archives

David K.A. Mordecai Testified Regarding the Dynamics of the Auction Rate Securities Market

David K.A. Mordecai, testified regarding the dynamics of the auction rate securities (ARS) market before, during, and following the financial crisis at a FINRA arbitration hearing on behalf of Lehman Brothers, Inc. and certain of its employees. A former corporate client of Lehman’s asserted several causes of action against Lehman, including breach of contract, suitability, and negligent misrepresentation/deceit related to the recommendation and purchase of auction rate securities. Following a two-week hearing in Houston, the three-member panel returned a decision denying Claimant’s claims in their entirety.

Dr. Mordecai worked on this engagement with Philip Cook, Michael Wilson, and Haley McIntosh at Jones Day, and was supported by Kevin Dages and George Hickey in Compass Lexecon’s Chicago office.

David K.A. Mordecai is President and Co-Founder of Risk Economics, a New York City based advisory firm. The Risk Economics^® litigation advisory practice provides advisory services and testimonial expertise on complex issues related to financial instrument valuation models and frameworks, market and industry standards and practices for the financing, risk management, active trading, and hedging of OTC derivatives and structured products. Dr. Mordecai is Senior Advisor to, and a Member of the Advisory Committee of, Compass Lexecon.

As lead for the Risk Economics^® litigation and arbitration advisory practice, David Mordecai serves as an expert on loss causation and economic damages related to market structure, financial institutions governance, and complex issues related to finance, economics and market standards and practices within securities, derivatives, reinsurance, and commodities markets, as well as market structure within a broad range of non-financial industry sectors. His expertise includes financial engineering, the valuation of fixed income securities and structured products, including over-the-counter derivatives (in particular fixed income and credit derivatives), complex insurance and reinsurance liabilities, as well as asset liability and risk management models and practices. Having testified extensively at deposition, trial, arbitration and international arbitration, he has been admitted as an expert in federal, state and county courts, and cited favorably in court decisions.

See Compass Lexecon 2011 Annual Newsletter for additional details.

David K.A. Mordecai was Interviewed as an Industry Expert by Derivatives Intelligence

David K.A. Mordecai, President of Risk Economics was interviewed as an industry expert for the June 24, 2010 issue of Derivatives Intelligence, regarding longevity hedges, for an article entitled EU Insurers Likely to Rachet up Longevity Hedges.

Risk Economics provides advisory services at the intersection of commercial business-process engineering and risk engineering with a particular focus on coupling commercial reinsurance and financial technology, through the rigorous application of agent-based, demographic, and statistical methodologies to microeconomic and macroeconomic analytics.

David K.A. Mordecai was Interviewed as an Industry Expert by Derivatives Week

David K.A. Mordecai, President of Risk Economics^® was interviewed as an industry expert for the March 8, 2010 issue of Institutional Investor publication Derivatives Week, regarding the issuance of a longevity-linked structured notes for an article entitled Longevity Structured Note Floated.

David K.A. Mordecai is President and Co-Founder of Risk Economics, a New York City based advisory firm. Risk Economics specializes in the application of computational economics to the proprietary development and scalable implementation of robust modeling and data analytic frameworks for valuation, strategic and systemic risk analysis, and dynamic asset-liability management.

As Lead for the Risk Economics litigation and arbitration advisory practice, David serves as an expert on loss causation and economic damages related to market structure, financial institutions governance, and complex issues related to finance, economics and market standards and practices within securities, derivatives, reinsurance, and commodities markets, as well as market structure within a broad range of non-financial industry sectors. His expertise includes financial engineering, the valuation of fixed income securities and structured products, including over-the-counter derivatives (in particular fixed income and credit derivatives), complex insurance and reinsurance liabilities, as well as asset liability and risk management models and practices. Having testified extensively at deposition, trial, arbitration and international arbitration, David Mordecai has been admitted as an expert in federal, state and county courts, and cited favorably in court decisions.

David K.A. Mordecai was Interviewed as an Industry Expert on Longevity and Mortality by Derivatives Week

David K.A. Mordecai, President of Risk Economics, was interviewed as an industry expert for the April 21, 2008 issue of Institutional Investor publication Derivatives Week, regarding the calculation of life expectancy and its relationship to longevity derivatives, for an article entitled Mortality Assumptions Key to Longevity Structures.

David K.A. Mordecai is President and Co-Founder of Risk Economics, a New York City based advisory firm. Risk Economics^® specializes in the application of computational economics to the proprietary development and scalable implementation of robust modeling and data analytic frameworks for valuation, strategic and systemic risk analysis, and dynamic asset-liability management.

During his 30 year tenure in the financial services industry, David K.A. Mordecai has served as a Managing Director at Swiss Re, where he led Relative-Value Market Strategies, a quantitative economics and financial engineering function with the global mandate to develop firm-wide and industry standards, benchmarks and frameworks for the valuation and trading of exposures underlying long-dated life, health, medical and pension liabilities as well as geopolitical risk. Prior to this, he served as Senior Advisor to the Head of Swiss Re Financial Services. Previously, at a multi-strategy hedge fund with $10 Billion of assets under management, he was Managing Director of Structured Products, responsible for $5 billion of CDO assets. Prior to his role as a hedge fund manager, David K.A. Mordecai was Vice President of Financial Engineering/Principal Finance at AIG, and a Director at the rating agency Fitch. During the first decade of his career, David Mordecai specialized in credit analysis and the origination, structuring, and trading of leveraged loans for non-recourse project finance and highly leveraged transactions involving corporations and financial institutions.

Risk Economics, Inc.

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