Lifting the Corporate Veil in UK Law

Leading Cases
  • D.H.N. Food Distributors Ltd v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 04 Marzo 1976

    We all know that in many respects a group of companies are treated together for the purpose of general accounts, balance sheet and profit and loss account. This is especially the case when a parent company owns all the shares of the subsidiaries - so much so that it can control every movement of the subsidiaries. These subsidiaries are bound hand and foot to the parent company and must do just what the parent company says.

  • Axel Threlfall v ECD Insight Ltd and Another
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 29 Octubre 2013

    But its purpose is to deal with legal rights and obligations. The very fact that the making of such an order is discretionary demonstrates that the question is not one of rights and obligations of a non-party, for no obligations exist unless and until the court exercises its discretion. Moreover the fact that the discretion, if exercised, is exercised against a non-party underlines the proposition that the non-party has no substantive liability in respect of the cause of action in question.

  • Conway v Ratiu and Others
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 08 Noviembre 2005

    There is, it seems to me, a powerful argument of principle, in this intensely personal context of considerations of trust, confidence and loyalty, for lifting the corporate veil where the facts require it to include those in or behind the company who are in reality the persons whose trust in and reliance upon the fiduciary may be confounded.

  • Prest v Petrodel Resources Ltd
    • Supreme Court
    • 12 Junio 2013

    I conclude that there is a limited principle of English law which applies when a person is under an existing legal obligation or liability or subject to an existing legal restriction which he deliberately evades or whose enforcement he deliberately frustrates by interposing a company under his control.

  • Deutsche Bank AG v Sebastian Holdings Incorporated and Another
    • Queen's Bench Division (Commercial Court)
    • 24 Junio 2014

    As Lewison LJ remarked in Threlfall v ECD Insight Ltd [2014] 2 Costs LR 129 at paragraph 13, if a non-party costs order is made against a company director or shareholder, it is wrong to characterise this as piercing or lifting the corporate veil or to say that the company and the director or shareholder are one and the same. The separate personality of a corporation, even a single member corporation, is deeply embedded in our law for the purpose of dealing with legal rights and obligations.

  • Dadourian Group International Inc. (a company incorporated under the Laws of the State of New York) and Others v Azuri Ltd
    • Chancery Division
    • 14 Noviembre 2007

    In all of the cases where the court has been willing to pierce the corporate veil, it has been necessary or convenient to do so to provide the claimant with an effective remedy to deal with the wrong which has been done to him and where the interposition of a company would, if effective, deprive him of that remedy against him. It seems to me that the veil, if it is to be lifted at all, is to be lifted for the purposes of the relevant transaction.

  • La Générale des Carrières et des Mines v F.G. Hemisphere Associates LLC
    • Privy Council
    • 17 Julio 2012

    The alternative way in which Hemisphere puts its case is to submit that, if Gécamines is otherwise accepted as a separate juridical entity, the facts found justify the lifting of the corporate veil to enable Hemisphere to pursue Gécamines as well as the State. In the Board's view, this involves a misapplication of any principles upon which the corporate veil may be lifted under domestic and international law.

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Legislation
  • Birmingham Corporation Act 1903
    • UK Non-devolved
    • 1 de Enero de 1903
    ... ... " and it is expc:- tlieiit that tlie corporate name of the municipal corporation of Birmingham ... strengthening reconstructing altering lifting or supporting of any bridge over or under their ... t \veil ty-lbiir hours Iioticc of siicli apped and of ... ...
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Books & Journal Articles
  • Growth companies and procedural safeguards in European patent litigation
    • No. 25-2, April 2018
    • Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law
    The unitary patent system with the establishment of the Unified Patent Court will lead to unitary patent protection covering most European Union countries. Moreover, it will lead to litigation with...
    ... ... C. Lifting the corporate veil prevents circumvention Under ... ...
  • The Securities and Investments Board v Scandex Capital Management A/S & Jeremy Bartholomew‐White
    • No. 5-4, April 1997
    • Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance
    • 361-365
    The first Defendant, Scandex Capital Management A/S, (Scandex) was a Danish company, now in liquidation, of which the second Defendant, Mr Bartholomew‐White was managing director and in which he he...
    ... ... should be treated as his business by 'lifting the corpo-rate veil' or because he was a person ... Lifting the corporate veil Could the SIB set aside Scandex' corporate ... ...
  • European Directives — the Emerging Dilemmas
    • No. 54-3, May 1991
    • The Modern Law Review
    ... ... LJ in Lonrho v ShellI4 that the corporate" veil would only be lifted where the \xE2" ... to apply principles concerned with lifting the corporate veil within a group of ... ...
  • The doctrine of piercing the corporate veil: Its legal and judicial recognition in Ethiopia
    • No. 6-1, June 2012
    • Mizan Law Review
    • Endalew Lijalem Enyew
    • LL.B (Hawassa University), LL.M (Addis Ababa University)
    • 77-114
    Upon acquisition of legal personality a company enjoys certain attributes such as limited liability. While the separate legal personality of a company enables it to enjoy rights and assume obligati...
    ... ... This process is known as piercing or lifting the corporate veil ... Based on legislative analysis, interview, and case analysis, this article tries to explore some possible grounds by which ... ...
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Law Firm Commentaries
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