Expertise in Economic Theory and Modeling
| The interdependence and growth of global markets have increased the scale and frequency of international trade disputes. As these disputes become more complex, expert assessments of financial, economic, and business matters have become increasingly important.
The venues where our firm has provided expert analysis include the U.S. International Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the International Trade Administration, and the World Trade Organization. |
In these matters, Cornerstone Research experts and staff:
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Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
José Alberro
Senior Advisor
José Alberro coheads Cornerstone Research’s international arbitration and litigation practice. His expertise focuses on applied economic and financial modeling across a variety of industries, with particular depth in oil and natural gas, petrochemicals, consumer goods, industrial inputs, and telecommunications. He specializes in damages estimation in the context of international arbitration; mergers and antitrust; tariff design in network industries (electricity, natural gas transportation and distribution, water); and economic impact analysis.
Dr. Alberro has provided expert testimony on four continents, involving both investor-state and commercial disputes. He has testified in proceedings under ICSID, UNCITRAL, ECT, and ICC rules. He has been an expert in cases related to investments in oil and gas assets, mining, construction, sweeteners, alcoholic beverages, and port operations. Most recently, Dr. Alberro was chosen as a damages expert by the Costa Rican government in an ICSID arbitration.
He was the founding CEO and president of Pemex Gas, a large Mexican gas and liquids company, and served as Pemex’s chief representative during NAFTA negotiations. He has consulted for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Dr. Alberro taught at universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. His research and analyses have been widely published, including in the GAR Guide to Damages in International Arbitration, the ICSID Review, the Journal of Damages in International Arbitration, and the International Arbitration Law Review. Dr. Alberro is named as one of the world’s leading expert witnesses and thought leaders by Who’s Who Legal. Financier Worldwide has recognized him as an exceptional expert and “power player” in the field of international arbitration.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
John Asker
Armen A. Alchian Chair in Economic Theory and Professor of Economics,
University of California, Los Angeles;
Senior Advisor, Cornerstone Research
John Asker is a leading expert in antitrust and competition economics. Professor Asker focuses on topics related to antitrust policy, cartel behavior, vertical restraints, auction design, firm-level productivity, industry subsidy effects, and artificial intelligence (AI) pricing mechanisms. He also has experience with issues at the intersection of financial markets and antitrust.
An experienced expert witness, he has provided testimony in numerous high-profile matters. Counsel for Meta retained Professor Asker to assess competitive effects in the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) review of Meta’s $1 billion acquisition of Kustomer. He was retained by counsel for SoftBank and Sprint Corporation in the $26 billion T-Mobile/Sprint merger. Professor Asker provided written testimony to the World Trade Organization on behalf of the Canadian government in the U.S.–Canada softwood lumber dispute.
Professor Asker has served as an economic consultant to both federal and state regulatory agencies. In the AT&T/DirecTV merger, he served as an expert for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The U.S. Department of Justice retained him to evaluate potential competitive effects of the then-proposed merger between Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont. He has coauthored several amicus briefs presented before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal appellate courts.
Professor Asker is an editor of the Journal of Political Economy. He has also held editorial positions at the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, the RAND Journal of Economics, and the Journal of Industrial Economics. His research has been published in leading economics journals, including the Journal of Political Economy and the American Economic Review. Who’s Who Legal has named Professor Asker as a leading competition economist, as well as a Thought Leader and Future Leader in the competition field. Global Competition Review recognized him in its inaugural list of the world’s most important antitrust academics.
Professor Asker has taught courses in antitrust policy, industrial organization, and strategy. He also speaks on antitrust topics, including to U.S. federal agencies, and has been a visiting scholar at the FTC’s Bureau of Economics, the Department of Economics at Harvard, and Yale Law School.
Before joining the UCLA faculty, Professor Asker was an associate professor of economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Daniel Sumner
Frank H. Buck Jr. Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics,
Director, University of California Agricultural Issues Center,
University of California, Davis
Daniel Sumner is an expert in national and international competition in agricultural markets as well as agricultural economics and policy. His research and writing focus on the consequences of farm and trade policy for agriculture and the economy. Professor Sumner has analyzed markets for beef, dairy, wine, olive oil, rice, wheat, cotton, and many other agricultural products.
He has testified in numerous matters involving agriculture, including cases related to antitrust, false advertising, class certification, and cross-border trade. Professor Sumner has experience as an expert witness in depositions and trials in state and federal courts in the United States, with regulatory agencies, and before the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, and dispute settlement panels and the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization.
As director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, Professor Sumner oversees and conducts a university outreach program related to public issues concerning agriculture. Prior to his current positions, Professor Sumner was the assistant secretary for economics at the United States Department of Agriculture, where he was involved in policy formulation and analysis on the whole range of topics facing agriculture and rural America, from food and farm programs to trade, resources, and rural development. In his role as supervisor of the Department of Agriculture’s economics and statistics agencies, Professor Sumner was also responsible for data collection, outlook, and economic research. He has also served as a senior economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Professor Sumner is the author or coauthor of more than one hundred academic publications, including articles in the Journal of Political Economy, Agricultural Economics, and the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. He has also coauthored and contributed to a number of books and has written widely for industry outlets.
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