In the 17 years since completing his PhD from the Wharton School, Dr Brian C Becker has produced more than 300 economic expert reports for Fortune 500 corporations, international law firms, the Internal Revenue Service, the Australian Taxation Office and the Canada Revenue Agency. Focusing on transfer pricing, valuation, damage calculations and anti-dumping analysis, Dr Becker has testified in a number of legal venues, including US Tax Court, The Tax Court of Canada, The Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal, The Federal Court of Australia, The Canadian International Trade Tribunal, Delaware Chancery Court and The US International Trade Commission. In addition to this expert witness experience, Dr Becker has: (a) published more than two dozen papers/book chapters; and (b) served as a visiting professor in the business schools of four universities.
Testimony
Dr Becker's testimony and expert reports have involved disputes in the pharmaceutical, software, medical devices, automotive and other industries:
- GlaxoSmithKline Holdings (Americas) v Commissioner of Internal Revenue: In 2006, Dr Becker served as a lead transfer pricing economic expert for the IRS in a dispute with the multinational pharmaceutical company Glaxo, which resulted in the largest tax settlement in history-$3.4 billion.
- General Electric Capital Canada v Her Majesty the Queen: In a transfer pricing dispute involving guarantee fees, Dr Becker submitted two expert witness reports in 2009. Engaged by the Department of Justice Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency, Dr Becker testified on this dispute before the Tax Court of Canada.
- Roche Products Pty Limited v Commissioner of Taxation: In 2007-2008, Dr Becker served as a lead expert witness for the Australian Taxation Office in a transfer pricing dispute with Roche Products. In this first major transfer pricing litigation in Australia, Dr Becker testifed before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
- SNF (Australia) PTY Limited v The Commissioner of Taxation of the Commonwealth of Australia: In 2009, Dr Becker served as an expert witness for the Austrlian Taxation Office in a transfer pricing dispute with SNF. This case represented the first major transfer pricing litigation in the Federal Court of Australia.
- International Trade Disputes: On more than a half dozen occasions, Dr Becker has testified at the US International Trade Commission and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal on the damages caused by alleged dumping for various steel, food and chemical products.
- Valuation and Damages: Dr Becker's economic reports and testimony have covered a wide range of valuation and damages disputes. Recent testimony has included the valuation of: (a) a retail operation destroyed in the 9/11 attacks; (b) shares in a publishing business; and (c) computer hardware and pharmaceutical manufacturing businesses.
- Cost Sharing and Other Disputes: Dr Becker has been engaged as a lead economic expert by taxpayers and tax authorities on more than half a dozen occasions in which the potential dispute exceeded $1 billion, including the cost sharing disputes of the software company Veritas Software Corp/Symantec Corp and the medical devices company Medtronic.
Education
- PhD: Applied economics, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
- BA: Applied mathematics and economics, Johns Hopkins University
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