Nicole P. Wells, CPA, CFF

Nicole Wells has more than 20 years of professional experience in providing consulting services in forensic accounting investigations, regulatory matters, antitrust criminal investigations, complex civil litigation and general accounting matters.

Ms. Wells conducts complex investigations related to accounting irregularities and management conduct. She has led investigations across numerous industries on behalf of companies, shareholders and boards in connection with whistleblower allegations, subpoenas and government inquiries concerning financial statement errors, accounting misconduct and asset misappropriation. Ms. Wells has led investigations in the United States as well as foreign jurisdictions that have pertained to issues involving revenue recognition; goodwill and intangible assets; financial statement disclosures; internal controls; and bribery, kickbacks and embezzlement.

Ms. Wells also has experience in providing expert and consulting services in dispute matters including accounting of profits, breach of contract claims, disgorgement claims, lost profit analyses, and post-merger & acquisition disputes involving both working capital and earn-outs. Recently, Ms. Wells led a large accounting investigation engagement for a publicly traded U.S.-based franchise corporation. Working with external counsel, Ms. Wells and her team assisted the company’s Audit Committee by investigating and quantifying revenue recognition accounting issues under U.S. GAAP Accounting Standard Codification (“ASC”) 606. The engagement included the assessment of materiality impacts as well as internal control and remediation measures.

Ms. Wells also specializes in complex regulatory criminal and civil matters involving price fixing, bid-rigging and market allocation schemes before the U.S. Department of Justice and several other global competition regulatory agencies. Ms. Wells also provides proactive consulting services to her clients by assisting in the evaluation and development of monitoring tools using financial and operational data. Ms. Wells is currently serving as the independent antitrust monitor for a manufacturing company pursuant to its agreement with a U.S. government agency.

Ms. Wells has given numerous presentations to the legal and corporate community on accounting-based investigation and dispute matters including working capital, earnouts, neutral arbitrator’s role in post-merger/acquisition matters and overall damages for matters involving post-merger/acquisition indemnification claims. She also presented on antitrust regulatory investigations and civil litigation matters involving complex transaction data.