Event Date
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Under the “entity theory” of corporate law, which treats each individual corporation as a distinct legal entity, owners of a corporation cannot be held responsible for its debts and obligations. Likewise, a non-resident parent corporation is not subject to jurisdiction in a particular forum just because one of its subsidiaries does business there. These principles sometimes frustrate efforts of litigants in U.S. courts to hold multinational enterprises fully accountable for the impacts of their operations. There are of course some limits to corporate independence, in the form of “alter ego” and other veil-piercing strategies, but those doctrines are very difficult to invoke. In view of the ever-expanding size and scale of enterprise groups, some scholars have advocated for a more radical shift to an “enterprise” theory of corporate law that would reject the legal formalism of corporate personality where groups of corporations act as a unitary economic enterprise. Professor Hannah Buxbaum's talk will address the possibility of using enterprise theory to advance corporate accountability.
Co-sponsored with the Business Law Journal. Lunch provided.