Experience
Amber Mortensen is the managing shareholder over the divorce practice area at Sage Forensic Accounting. She has primarily been engaged by attorneys and law firms to assist them and their clients with financial and accounting-oriented issues.
Ms. Mortensen has also been engaged to provide professional expertise to individuals, businesses, insurance companies, financial institutions, and not-for-profit organizations.
Ms. Mortensen’s professional experience is summarized below.
Business Valuation
Ms. Mortensen has engaged in conducting appraisals across both collaborative and adversarial settings. She has assessed the value of closely held companies across diverse industries for a multitude of purposes. In her valuation work, she leverages her expertise in forensic accounting, economic analysis, and other financial disciplines. Ms. Mortensen frequently contributes to intricate valuation assignments, addressing complexities such as differentiating between enterprise and personal goodwill, and allocating goodwill value. The diverse businesses in which Ms. Mortensen has played a key role in valuing include:
- Closely held companies for purposes of gift and estate tax planning, management decision-making, and divorce settlement
- A therapeutic school/residential treatment center
- A livestock operation during a case involving allegations of estate mismanagement
- A heating and air conditioning company for consulting purposes
- A company that supplies concession businesses including those found at movie theaters, parks and recreation facilities, arenas, entertainment venues, golf courses, schools, church, etc.
- Several day care centers for litigation purposes
- A business operating a boutique hotel operation in Costa Rica specializing in hosting group family vacations, destination weddings, wellness retreats, executive forums, and family camps
- Business entities that own retail grocery stores
- Several health grocery stores for settlement purposes
- An insurance broker company for a divorce settlement
- A commercial wholesale bakery specializing in bagels, tortillas, and pita bread
- Several fast-food franchise restaurants for litigation purposes
- Many different holding entities, including real estate holding companies, business asset holding companies, family limited partnerships, investment holding companies, etc.
Forensic/Investigative Accounting
Most of Ms. Mortensen’s assignments involve applying her forensic accounting expertise to different aspects of the matter, from analyzing and interpreting financial trends in a business to investigating fraud allegations. Some of the varied matters in which Ms. Mortensen has applied her forensic accounting skills to provide assistance include having:
- Performed investigative accounting services relative to the valuation and tracing of marital assets in divorce cases.
- Performed analyses of monthly cash flows for use in a divorce settlement.
- Assisted with reconstructing accounting records for an alleged Ponzi scheme investigation.
- Reconstructed casino financial statements from source documents to resolve financial summary ambiguities.
- Investigated alleged embezzlement of funds from a travel agency.
- Investigated and determined total remuneration of a financial advisor employed at an investment bank.
- Investigated and identified assets of estates and businesses for use in probate, marital dissolution, and corporate matters. She regularly conducts these analyses for purposes of preparing a schedule detailing a marital estate for use in determining an equitable division.
Evaluation of Economic Damages and Related Assessment of Economic Causation
Ms. Mortensen has computed economic losses, or damages, in diverse types of cases. She has assisted in calculating losses from business interruptions, destruction, dissolution, and a variety of disputes, as well as evaluating damages analyses of others. She has prepared both consulting and expert reports for legal consulting and settlement negotiations. Some of the matters in which Ms. Mortensen has applied her expertise include having:
- Assisted plaintiff and defendant attorneys with analyses of various business interruption claims, including lost profits and diminution in business value.
- Assessed economic damages due to an alleged delay in the closing and funding of real estate transactions.
- Reconstructed bank records for a large privately owned business amid allegations of contractor misappropriation.
- Calculated damages due to an alleged breach of contract between a network marketing company and one of its distributors.
- Analyzed the economic loss resulting from personal injury, wrongful death, and wrongful termination cases.
Critique and Review of Other Financial Experts
Ms. Mortensen is frequently engaged in assignments focused on reviewing reports by other financial experts. Her work in this context ranges from offering consulting advice to counsel to assisting with rebuttal expert report preparation. Some of the expert rebuttal analyses she has prepared have included evaluating and critiquing:
- Gross income and expenses for use in determining alimony and support
- Economic damage claims in matters involving wrongful termination claims, personal injury claims, and wrongful death claims, including identifying and demonstrating the impact of flawed and speculative uses of generic data sources and vocational analyses
- Economic damage claims in a matter involving real estate development, management, and option agreements involving real estate with an estimated value of over several hundred million dollars
- Economic damage claims in a matter involving a loss of a distributorship and related down-line organization in a multi-level marketing business
Educational Qualifications
- Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Utah
- Master of Business Administration degree from Texas A&M University–Commerce
Professional Certifications
- Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners
Professional Affiliations/Activities
- Member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners
- Officer, Utah Chapter of Certified Fraud Examiners, 2014 to present
Types of Matters
Ms. Mortensen has delivered professional services for a wide variety of purposes and across diverse matters, thanks to the versatility and broad applicability of the core principles of forensic accounting, valuation, and economic damages. The different types of matters Ms. Mortensen has handled include:
Derk has provided professional services for a wide variety of purposes and in a wide variety of matters. This variety is because the foundational principles in forensic accounting, valuation, and economic damages can be appropriately applied in many different situations, the following attempts to broadly summarize the different types of matters he worked on during his career:
