Yan Cao specializes in matters involving financial markets, financial institutions, and financial accounting. Dr. Cao has more than eighteen years of consulting experience on securities, valuation, trading, financial institutions, financial market, and financial accounting issues.
In particular, Dr. Cao has assessed pricing and trading issues related to equity, fixed income, commodities, futures and derivatives, foreign exchange (FX), and crypto assets. She has also consulted on matters involving company valuation, solvency, risk management, corporate governance, financial reporting and internal controls, and damages. Her case experience covers various industries, with an emphasis on banking, broker-dealers, and other financial institutions.
Dr. Cao’s consulting experience includes substantial expertise with regulatory and internal investigations. She has presented analysis to multiple regulatory agencies and to corporate management. She also works with experts in all stages of arbitration and litigation, including trial.
In 2023, Consulting Magazine named Dr. Cao to its list of Women Leaders in Consulting, recognizing her as a Future Leader who demonstrates “above-the-call” leadership benefiting her organization and current and future peers.
Dr. Cao has consulted to clients on regulatory and internal investigations, civil litigation, and criminal litigation matters led by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
In particular, Dr. Cao heads Cornerstone Research’s market manipulation and market microstructure practice. In the context of regulatory enforcement actions and white collar litigation, she has experience in evaluating alleged market manipulation and trading conduct claims, payment for order-flow arrangements, price impact, and trading and hedging strategies across a range of financial markets, including crypto markets. Her expertise includes: