Separate Legal Personality Case Study

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In company law, registered companies are complicated with the concepts of separate legal personality as the courts do not have a definite rule on when to lift the corporate veil. The concept of ‘Separate legal personality’ is created under the Companies Act 1862 and the significance of this concept is being recognized in the Companies Act 2006 nowadays. In order to avoid personal liability, it assures that individuals are sanctioned to incorporate companies to separate their business and personal affairs. The ‘separate legal personality’ principle was further reaffirmed in the courts through the decision of Salomon v Salomon & Co Ltd. , and it sets the rock in which our company law rests which stated that the legal entity distinct from its …show more content…

By definition, ‘legal personality’ means the company is distinct from its members and it is not the agent of those shareholders. When there is an insolvency of the company, the members of the company is not liable for that as there is a separate legal entity. Salomon is a landmark case which first set out this principle and it is mainly about limiting the liabilities of the whole in order to protect the corporate groups by structuring themselves in ways when the company went insolvent. Since then, most of the traders are trying to attain the benefits from the Salomon principle by choosing their company limited by shares. As a matter of fact, the separate nature of the corporation from its members has been recognized in the 17th century and the early example would be seen in Foss v Harbottle. Although the courts were avid to apply this principle, it is notable that they deviated ever so often from that by ‘piercing the corporate …show more content…

Looking into the merits of this principle, it seeks to protect the company and its members by the independent corporate existence and the establishment of limited liability, which is a major advantage of incorporation as the members are not necessary liable for its debts. Another advantage is having separate property, the company is able to hold and enjoy the property under its own name and no one is able to claim the ownership of the company’s assets. Despite all the advantages, there are scholars criticizing with such principle and the first academic who against it was Kahn-Freund. He asserted that he Salomon principle was ‘catastrophic’ as it is an ideal vehicle for fraud and he argued that the incorporation is relatively more

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