Category Archives: Business Ethics

A Case Study about Recent Developments In Ethics, Credentials, Standards And Disclosure

In January of this year, the Federal Judicial Center published a Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, including a module entitled, “Reference Guide on Estimation of Economic Losses in Damage Awards” by Robert E. Hall and Victoria A. Lazear. The Federal Judicial Center is a part of the judiciary branch of the federal government. Under its charter, copies of this reference manual were mailed to all federal judges. Copies cannot be obtained directly from the Federal Judicial Center, but are available through the Superintendent of Documents, Shepherd’s and most other law publishing series (e.g., West’s) at various prices, ranging from $13 to about $32.

This publication was not anticipated by the Board of Directors of the National Association of Forensic Economics (NAFE), but proved the wisdom of a major NAFE project that was already well underway when the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence was published. The ESQD (Ethics, Standard, Qualifications and Disclosure) Committee of NAFE was already working on a series of modules whose goal was to provide the judiciary with some guidance in determining whether a given report of economic loss had been done in a qualified manner. This project was undertaken to provide an alternative to a process of establishing credentials for economic experts themselves. keep reading…

• recent cases on damage awards