In practice, courts are reluctant to award compensation for lost profit since in most instances it is considered speculative. In a diamond transaction, when a seller fails to deliver a stone, lost profit is extraordinarily difficult to calculate since it is highly idiosyncratic." A dealer's profit on a rough stone depends intimately on his network of contacts, his skill as a cutter, and his ability to choose a cut for which market demand is high. The same is true of polished stones, but to a lesser degree. Similarly, when a buyer breaches a promise to pay money, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the profit the promisee would have made subsequent to the breach had he been able to invest the money he was owedthe value of business opportunities forgone is inherently speculative. The longer it takes to obtain a judgment, which in New York court can take up to three years, the greater will be the uncompensated loss suffered by the promissee when his ability to enter into subsequent transactions is impaired due to lack of capital.

XREF: Connects to contract law remedies and the economics of damages, particularly how uncertain future profits are treated in common-law jurisdictions.

Lisa Bernestein, Opting out of the Legal Sys…, loc. 151