Forensic Accounting & Expert Witness Services

Curriculum Vitae
of
M. Martin Mercer, JD, CPA, FCPA, CFE, CFF

Mr. Mercer is a Certified Public Accountant and an Attorney with over 25 years of experience in business management, financial planning, information technology, and software development. He comes from a 'Big 4' accounting background and has accumulated a breadth of experience leading and managing the fiscal, operational, and technological functions of companies whose industries include real estate, software development, e-commerce, law, tax, insurance, and public accounting. His expertise includes finance and accounting, legal/contract negotiations, e-business, e-commerce, strategic marketing, new product development, organizational development, and IT integration project development. Additionally, for over 20 years Mr. Mercer has taught accounting theory, auditing, business law, and computer science to college students and CPA candidates.

Mr. Mercer's experience includes forensic accounting services to attorneys involved in business litigation, and served as Vice President of Financial Fraud Investigations during the Savings & Loan meltdown in the 1990s. He is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), a Forensic CPA, and is Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF) through the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

Specifically, Mr. Mercer has directed and coordinated financial and computer fraud investigations involving white-collar crime and financial institution losses that includes:

• Providing litigation services assisting in the preparation of pleadings, responses, interrogatories, exhibits, depositions, and direct and cross examinations.
• Analyzing complex real estate transactions where fraud or malfeasance was suspected.
• Interfacing with local law enforcement and the FBI.
• Preparing investigative reports and criminal referrals for submission to the FBI.
• Performing statistical analyses on automotive loan pools to establish that the loan default rate was dramatically shorter for loans accepted from specific suspicious automobile dealers compared with the general population of automobile dealers in the loan pools as a whole. This information pointed federal investigators to specific loan officers and automobile dealerships, resulting in criminal referrals.
• Successfully defending a company owner/partner against allegations of mismanagement by his business partners resulting in the bankruptcy of his franchised 50-store retail chain. Discovered evidence of long-term embezzlement on the part of the suing partners thereby securing a favorable countersuit settlement for the client.
• Searching for and locating hidden assets of former officers and directors of Savings & Loan institutions.
• Providing litigation support to substantiate a $50 million deduction of accelerated capitalized interest which had been denied by the IRS. Efforts were successful in obtaining a settlement with the IRS wherein $49 million out of the $50 million in previously denied deductions were allowed.
• Providing litigation support attendant to 'expansive soils' class action litigation by developing a database that quantified critical information regarding 20,000 homes built in the Denver Metropolitan Area. The database established a statistically significant relationship between expansive soils and basement complaints and went on to estimate the total potential exposure to the Company. Company attorneys were then able to negotiate a favorable settlement to the class action lawsuit brought by homeowners.
• Uncovering fraud and embezzlement by senior executives where company revenues and client reserves which had been sequestered for future services were misappropriated for personal use.

Mr. Mercer graduated with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a bachelor's degree in economics and accounting in 1978. He received his Juris Doctorate from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California in 1981. He has been a licensed Certified Public Accountant and Attorney since 1981 and comes from a 'Big 4' accounting background. Mr. Mercer is a partner with B2B CFO^® providing CFO services to growing companies and offering financial fraud investigation, litigation support, forensic accounting, and expert witness services to litigating attorneys on a nationwide basis.