The survival of many companies depends on relationships between key customers or vendors (or both). When one of these relationships is disrupted, for whatever the reason, one party may incur financial damage — perhaps even leading to its demise. And business valuation professionals often evaluate this lost value as a source of economic damages. Going, going, gone . . . In many cases, valuators will present a company’s alleged damages as lost past and/or future profits. For instance, if a vendor breaches a contract to sell materials at a contracted price, the business may be forced to pay a higher price to the vendor, assuming no immediate alternatives are available. If it takes six months to secure a new vendor at the originally contracted price, the company will...
