Bates Welcomes New Consulting and Testifying Experts – June 2022

Joan Marie Asher, CIFD, IACCP

Hedge Funds, Private Equity, Alternative Investments

Joan Marie Asher is a Consulting Expert at Bates Group and the Founding Director of Paragon Fund Services, a boutique fractional service provider and advisory firm. Her career in financial services includes capital markets, hedge funds, broker dealers, and private equity, and she engages with numerous financial institutions, fund administrators, legal teams, vendors, and clients throughout the United States and abroad in various investment related activities.

Ms. Asher has more than 25 years of experience at several top-tier financial firms where she has successfully served in roles such as Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Compliance Officer. Her experience includes compliance and governance, risk management, operational due diligence, and the oversight of third-party service providers.

Ms. Asher is an Investment Advisor Certified Compliance Professional (IACCP) and one of only four women in the United States to hold a Certified Investment Fund Director (CIFD) designation, which is the premier qualification for investment fund directors. She also served as a subject matter expert to National Regulatory Services in reading, writing, and reviewing questions for the IACCP exam.

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Jeffrey L. Baliban, MA Econ, CPA/ABV/CFF, CDBV

Business and Economic Damages, Business Valuation, Accounting

Jeffrey Baliban is a Bates Testifying Expert whose professional practice has, for more than 4 decades, focused on resolving complex commercial disputes by providing independent evaluation studies of economic impact on the various parties involved. He is often asked to render independent opinions on business damages, loss of profits, and business valuation, and he has provided expert witness testimony in various federal and state jurisdictions, as well as in arbitration.

Over the years, Mr. Baliban has directed many national and international projects in matters including (but not limited to) breach of contract and tort claims, intellectual property disputes, shareholder disputes, fair value measures, post-acquisition disputes, post-employment restriction claims, adversarial proceedings in bankruptcy, and solvency/fraudulent transfer analyses. In addition, he has considerable experience as a damages expert in property and casualty insurance matters.

Mr. Baliban has been a CPA since 1981 and has written and spoken widely on various accounting, economics, valuation, and damages issues.  He is currently an adjunct professor of statistics in the New York University School for Professional Studies’ MS in Integrated Marketing program.

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Jeff Jamieson

Litigation, Regulatory, Internal Investigations

Jeff Jamieson is a Bates Consulting and Testifying Expert based in St. Louis, Missouri, who uses his expertise in Retail Securities, Regulatory Investigations, Compliance and Regulatory Reporting to serve our financial services clients and their counsel. He has extensive experience in litigation and regulatory matters, conducting internal investigations and regulatory reporting.

Since 1991, Mr. Jamieson has represented brokerage firms and their employees in litigation and arbitration cases and matters before federal and state regulators. He has arbitrated to award 35 cases before FINRA and the NYSE.

Before joining Bates, Mr. Jamieson was Senior Counsel for Wells Fargo Advisors, responding to regulatory matters and directing internal investigations for the Wealth and Investment Management Division. He has also testified as a fact witness on several occasions in arbitration cases brought against A.G. Edwards and Edward Jones related to internal investigations and Forms U4 and U5. Prior to his work in the securities industry, Mr. Jamieson was a Felony Staff Attorney for the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office where he prosecuted criminal cases and tried 65 jury trials to verdict.

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