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Business Organizations Law

2007

Washington and Lee University School of Law

Law & economics

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Piercing The Corporate Veil, Financial Responsibility, And The Limits Of Limited Liability, David K. Millon Jan 2007

Piercing The Corporate Veil, Financial Responsibility, And The Limits Of Limited Liability, David K. Millon

Scholarly Articles

Veil-piercing is the most heavily litigated issue in corporate law, yet legal doctrine in this area is notoriously incoherent. In this article, I argue that the only way to make sense of veil-piercing is through an accurate understanding of the policy underlying limited liability. Once that is appreciated it then becomes possible to make sense of the appropriate limits on limited liability. Piercing the corporate veil can then serve the useful function of distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate reliance on statutory limited liability.

After surveying efficiency rationales for limited liability and finding them unpersuasive, I propose that the best way to …