NERA Economic Consulting Announces Four Officer-Level Promotions

07 October 2005

NEW YORK--NERA Economic Consulting, an international firm of over 400 economists operating in 19 offices worldwide, announces the following officer-level promotions:

NERA promoted Dr. Chantale LaCasse and Dr. Hethie Parmesano to the position of Senior Vice President and Partner; and Dr. John H. Johnson and Dr. Ken Serwin to the position of Vice President.

Dr. Chantale LaCasse is based in NERA's New York City office. Dr. LaCasse is an expert on auctions and game theory. She provides advice mainly to energy market participants on auctions, competition, and regulatory issues. Most recently, she was the Auction Manager on behalf of four New Jersey Utilities for the procurement of supply to serve their standard offer load.

Dr. Hethie Parmesano is based in NERA's Los Angeles office, where she focuses on costing, pricing, and regulation of the electric, gas, and water utility industries. Dr. Parmesano directs NERA's Marginal Cost Working Group, a group of utility companies interested in sharing research and ideas on marginal costing and its use in applications such as pricing, planning, and retail access implementation. She has been heavily involved in regulatory reform, utility industry restructuring, and implementation of retail access in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.

Dr. John H. Johnson is based in NERA's Washington, DC office. Dr. Johnson's research at NERA primarily focuses on antitrust, labor, and intellectual property economics. He specializes in damages estimation and the use of econometric methods in commercial litigation. Dr. Johnson also specializes in the economics of class certification and has conducted economic analyses involving large transaction and demographic data sets, such as volume of commerce calculations, pricing analyses, and econometric damages modeling.

Dr. Ken Serwin is based in NERA's San Francisco office. Dr. Serwin serves as testifying expert, valuation expert, and consulting economist. He has testified in both federal and state courts on the determination of commercial economic damages, and specializes in intellectual property and securities matters. He also performs valuations of intellectual property assets and provides business valuation services in a variety of contexts.

For additional information on these practice members, please visit the expert section of NERA's website.

NERA Economic Consulting (www.nera.com), founded in 1961 as National Economic Research Associates, is a subsidiary of Mercer Inc., a Marsh & McLennan company.

About NERA

NERA Economic Consulting (www.nera.com) is a global firm of experts dedicated to applying economic, finance, and quantitative principles to complex business and legal challenges. For more than six decades, we have been creating strategies, studies, reports, expert testimony, and policy recommendations for government authorities and the world’s leading law firms and corporations. We bring academic rigor, objectivity, and real-world industry experience to issues arising from competition, regulation, public policy, strategy, finance, and litigation.

NERA’s clients value our ability to apply and communicate state-of-the-art approaches clearly and convincingly, our commitment to deliver unbiased findings, and our reputation for quality and independence. Our clients rely on the integrity and skills of our unparalleled team of economists and other experts backed by the resources and reliability of one of the world’s largest economic consultancies. Continuing our legacy as the first international economic consultancy, NERA serves clients from major cities across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.