Technical expert

A technical expert (expert technique) is a specialist appointed in judicial or arbitral proceedings to provide technical opinions on matters outside the court's competence — engineering, technology, manufacturing, environmental compliance. In M&A disputes, technical experts are often appointed alongside financial experts: the financial expert quantifies economic damages while the technical expert establishes causation (e.g., whether a manufacturing defect caused the claimed losses). Their joint testimony must be coordinated to present a coherent and mutually consistent case.

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Example: in a post-acquisition dispute involving CHF 3.5 million of claims related to defective machinery inherited from the target, a technical expert (mechanical engineer) and a financial expert (Hectelion) are jointly appointed. The technical expert establishes that 60% of the claimed defects pre-existed the acquisition (seller's responsibility); Hectelion quantifies the economic impact of those defects at CHF 2.1 million — the amount recoverable under the SPA warranty.

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Hectelion coordinates with technical experts in multi-disciplinary disputes, ensuring financial damage quantification is precisely grounded in the technical causation established by engineering specialists.