Commercial Disputes

Cirque Analytics’ experts bring precision, credibility, and a deep understanding of the financial and economic principles that can make or break your damages case. Proving financial harm—whether from a breached contract, antitrust violation, misappropriated intellectual property, or unfair competition—requires analysis that meets both professional economic and legal standards to turn messy real-world disputes into defensible numbers that hold up in court and withstand scrutiny from opposing experts.

We work closely with our clients to understand the facts of the case, the products or services at issue, and the competitive marketplace in which the alleged wrongdoing took place. Using a combination of economic research, case-specific evidence, and decades of experience, Cirque Analytics then develops reliable models that quantify damages in a way judges and jurors can understand at trial.

Cirque Analytics has extensive experience in quantifying damages for large group litigation, such as class actions and mass torts, especially in the areas of antitrust, labor, personal injury, data privcacy, and consumer fraud.

A class action is a case in which similar claims are bundled together into a single case. Conducting damages analysis in class actions requires economists to estimate the collective harm suffered by a group—such as consumers overcharged by a cartel, or workers underpaid by a monopsonistic employer. Damages analysis in a class action necessarily involves proving that a defendant’s actions had “common impact” on the class as a whole. To demonstrate common impact, a damages expert must successfully navigate the unique challenges of scale and legal scrutiny.

Mass torts typically involve many individual lawsuits related to a defendant’s alleged bad acts, such as toxic spills or drug side effects, where the severity of varies significantly across those impacted. Cirque Analytics has provided analysis and testimony related to individual claimant’s damages in numerous mass torts, including in “bellwether” trials.

Due to the scale and nature of these cases, mass torts and class actions often involve large and varied databases, lengthy timelines, and complex damages theories. Cirque Analytics possesses the eocnomic and technical expertise, as well as the data processing capabilities, required to provide efficient, timely, and critical damages analysis in these cases.

Learn more about class actions & mass torts.

Unfair competition includes any of a variety of business practices that are deceptive, unethical, or otherwise harmful to competition or consumers in ways that violate legal or economic standards. Unfair competition can take many forms in a variety of legal areas, including *Trademark infringement: Using a competitor’s brand or logo to confuse consumers.

• False advertising: Misrepresenting products or services to gain an edge.
• Price fixing or predatory pricing: Colluding with others to set prices or undercutting competitors with unsustainably low prices to drive them out of the market.
• Trade secret theft: Stealing proprietary information to gain an advantage.

Assessing damages related to unfair competition depend on the jurisdiction, as different federal and state laws that may be applicable in a given case. However, most unfair competition claims will necessarily involve comparing financial and competitive outcomes in the actual world with those that would have taken place but-for the alleged wrongdoing. Damages in these cases typically take the form of either lost profits or disgorgement of ill-gotten gains (i.e., the profits a defendant earned through its unfair practices). Cirque Analytics routinely employs the best tools and techniques for quantifying damages in these matters, including financial data analysis, econometric modeling, and benchmarking. Cirque Analytics is also often asked to evaluate claims of mitigation, cost avoidance, and corrective advertising in connection with unfairm competition. 

In lawsuits involving alleged breach of contract—meaning one party is accused of failing to fulfill its obligations—economists are often called upon to quantify the financial harm suffered by the non-breaching party. The economist’s role and responsibility is to provide a rigorous, evidence-based estimate of damages, which they may later present as expert testimony in court. Many of the cases Cirque Analytics’ experts are retained on involve claims of breached contracts. To assess damages appropriately, we work closely with our clients to understand the contractual terms at issue, the products or services involved, the competitive marketplace in which the parties operate, and the relevant financial outcomes–revenues, costs, and profits. Where necessary, we assist the client in preparing and producing the information necessary to conduct our analysis. With the appropriate information, we investigate the outcomes of the actual world and construct a model of the “but-for world”–the world that would have existed without the alleged wrongdoing. By comparing these two worlds, we can quantify the financial impact, or damages, associated with the alleged wrongdoing. 

The difficulty in estimating damages from a breach of contract depends greatly on a number of factors, especially the availability of reliable information and data. Cirque Analytics is frequently asked to consult on matters where financial outcomes are far from certain, such as in the case of startup firms, new ventures for existing firms, or even just the development of a new line of products or services. Businesses involved in such litigation can save considerable time and expense by retaining an economist early in the process to help identify the information that is available and necessary to conduct a reliable damages analysis. 

In false advertising lawsuits, economic damages aim to compensate a plaintiff—typically a competitor or consumer—for financial harm caused by a defendant’s deceptive, misleading, or unfair marketing claims. These cases often arise under the federal Lanham Act, but may also fall under different state consumer protection statutes. Notably, false advertising cases may involve a single plaintiff–such as a competitor who lost sales or market share due to false claims–or many individuals, such as a class of consumers who were misled by inaccurate labels or broader advertising campaigns. Businesses utilize a variety of advertising forms, such as online ads, search engine keywords, billboards, print media, television commercials, and more. Because different marketing mechanisms have different reaches and influence, a reliable analysis of damages in false advertising cases also requires an understanding of the nature of the marketplace, the products or services at issue, and most importantly, how the audience receives the false messages.

At Cirque Analytics, we are experienced in both developing sound theories and models of economic damages, and also in rebutting poorly-constructed and one-size-fits-all methodologies from opposing experts. We routinely evaluate false advertising damages in the form of lost profits, unjust enrichment, corrective advertising, and cost avoidance. We have given expert testimony in scores of cases in federal and state courts, and in a broad range of product and service markets. 

While most of Cirque’s clients are actively engaged in litigation, we are also frequently retained to perform confidential consulting outside of litigation. Retaining an economist or data consultant outside of litigation can provide significant strategic and financial benefits for businesses, individuals, or other organizations. In many cases, Cirque is retained to help evaluate practices and assess risk in anticipation of potential litigation. For example, firms in certain industries often face allegations that late fees (for unpaid rent, bills, etc…) are excessive. Anticipating such a possibility, firms have retained Cirque to conduct analysis of their late fee policies, including the size of the fees, analysis of fees in comparable industries, and the collection costs the fees are meant to cover. Similarly, in a labor context, Cirque Analytics is frequently retained to conduct rigorous statistical analysis of a firm’s hiring, firing, promotion, and compensation decisions to help firms understand thir own practices, reduce risk, and avoid costly ligitation. Cirque Analytics possesses not only the financial and statistical tools for conducting such an investigation, it also has the litigation-driven expertise to understand and quantify a client’s potential damages should litigation become a reality.