Reply

A reply (réplique) is the claimant's first substantive response to the respondent's answer in judicial or arbitral proceedings — the third exchange in the standard four-step sequence: request → answer → reply → rebuttal. In complex financial valuation disputes, the reply allows the claimant to rebut the respondent's expert's methodology, present counter-evidence on contested assumptions (WACC, multiples, projections) and strengthen their own valuation position. Its technical quality is decisive: judges and arbitrators focus heavily on whether the parties' experts adequately address each other's arguments.

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Example: in an arbitration on the value of a 35% stake, the claimant's reply responds to the respondent's expert's critique of the DCF model: it provides three updated comparable transactions supporting the terminal growth rate of 3.0%, a sector study validating the normalised EBITDA margin and a benchmarking table of WACC ranges for equivalent Swiss industrial companies — narrowing the valuation gap from CHF 1.9 million to CHF 700,000.

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Hectelion prepares the technical content of replies in valuation proceedings, addressing expert disagreements with documented market references.