Scott Steinberg · Consultant, Analyst and Business Strategist
Businesses now build on platforms whose terms they did not negotiate, whose ranking they cannot see, and whose fee changes arrive by email. Disputes ask what the relationship actually was, what dependency it created, and what a participant could reasonably have expected. A consultant to 3000+ brands, digital distributors, online marketplaces, and creator businesses, Scott Steinberg addresses these topics and more.
Platforms expert witness reports, declarations, deposition and trial testimony across digital, online, marketplace, app store, high-tech and service platforms: economics, policy and revenue share, participant terms, ranking and placement, deplatforming, lock-in, migration, etc.
Online marketplaces, app stores and developer platforms, high-tech AI and SaaS ecosystems, gig and creator platforms, service networks and more. From competition and antitrust to social networks.
Commission structures, listing fees, advertising that becomes effectively mandatory for visibility, and payment processing margins together determine what a participant actually retains.
Testimony addresses take rate convention in comparable platforms, how the effective rate moved over time, and what the total cost of participation really was against the headline commission.
Platforms draft the agreement, revise it at will and bind participants who have no practical alternative to accepting, which makes notice and transition the substance of most disputes.
Testimony reconstructs the terms in force at the relevant date, addresses what notice accompanied a change, and compares the transition allowed against platform convention.
Dependency is measurable: what share of revenue, customers or work came through the platform, what alternatives existed, and what building an independent channel would have cost in time and money.
Testimony quantifies that dependency and addresses whether the participant had a realistic alternative during the period in question.
What a participant earns depends on where they appear, and ranking responds to signals the platform describes only partially and changes without notice.
Testimony addresses observable ranking behaviour, what a placement change did to a participant's volume, and what the platform disclosed about how position was determined.
Price parity requirements, best-offer clauses and category exclusivity constrain what a participant may do off the platform, and their practical reach frequently exceeds what the participant understood.
Testimony addresses how such provisions operate commercially in that market and what compliance actually demanded of a business.
Participants receive a partial view of their own business: aggregated analytics, withheld customer identity, and metrics defined by the platform without independent verification.
Testimony addresses what data participants were given, what was withheld, and how the platform's own use of participant data compared to what participants could access.
Suspension can end a business immediately, and disputes examine notice given, whether the cited basis was applied consistently, what appeal existed and how long funds were withheld.
Testimony addresses enforcement practice and characterises the action against how comparable participants were treated in the same period.
Whether a participant could realistically operate across platforms depends on reputation portability, customer relationship ownership, integration cost and catalogue transfer.
Testimony addresses what migration actually required and what the participant would have lost in moving, which frequently bounds a damages figure.
Platforms hold participant funds between transaction and payout, applying reserves, holds and dispute deductions under terms participants seldom examine until money stops arriving.
Testimony addresses settlement practice in comparable platforms and what the payment record shows about holds and deductions applied.
Platform terms, fee schedules and policy documents are revised continuously and superseded versions are rarely published, so reconstructing the rules as they stood is core early work. Any party may instruct.
Written opinions on platform economics, terms as they stood, participant dependency and commercial consequence.
Testimony on how multi-sided platforms actually work for the businesses that depend on them.
Responsive analysis of dependency assertions, lost revenue models and characterisations of platform obligations.
Non-testifying reconstruction of terms and fee history, dependency assessment and discovery scoping.
Scott Steinberg is a court-qualified expert witness, analyst, consultant and business trends expert with over 25 years of experience providing management and strategic consulting services to more than 3,000 businesses and brands ranging from startups to government agencies and Fortune 500 firms.
He has testified in sample areas including intellectual property — copyrights, trademarks and patents — patent infringement, marketing, branding, video games, mobile applications, consumer product development, and the growth and monetization of online distribution platforms.
He is the author of over 30 books and has published more than five thousand articles addressing areas including but not limited to marketing, technology, leadership, innovation, advertising, digital transformation, data privacy and social networks. He appears regularly on ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, and has led seminars and training programs for organizations including Wells Fargo, the PGA Tour, Century 21, Ford, Dell and Procter & Gamble.
His consulting work has been broadly recognized. He has served as a thought leader for the American Bar Association and Corporate Counsel magazine, and has received honors from the International Association for Scholastic Excellence, Fortune, and the 21st Century Icon Awards, among others.
A platforms expert witness generally addresses multi-sided platforms as a commercial model: what participation actually cost, what the terms provided and how they changed, how ranking and placement determined revenue, what dependency the relationship created, and what suspension or migration would realistically have meant for a business.
Yes, antitrust services address conduct as a competition question: market definition, self-preferencing, foreclosure and entry conditions. Drop us a line if you need assistance with a competition law matter.
Generally, law firms might do so via the participant's own records: what share of revenue, orders, customers or work came through the platform, how that share moved over time, what alternative channels existed and were tried, and what building an independent channel would have cost. Dependency is a quantity here, not an adjective.
Because platforms revise agreements and fee schedules continuously and rarely publish superseded versions. A dispute about a fee change or an enforcement action has to be assessed against the terms in force on that date, which usually has to be assembled from archives, participant correspondence and contemporaneous documentation.
Any digital or online platform where businesses or individuals depend on an intermediary they do not control: online marketplaces, app stores and developer platforms, high-tech and SaaS ecosystems, gig and work platforms, creator monetisation platforms, and delivery or logistics networks. The commercial questions stay consistent across them.
Initial conversations about scope, timing and conflicts are without charge. Helpful detail includes the platform, the participant's role on it and the period in dispute, plus any expert disclosure deadline already set.
A conflicts check is run before any substantive discussion. An initial note listing the party names and a one-line description of the dispute is enough to start; please hold privileged or confidential material until the check clears.