Direct Liability and Veil-Piercing: When One Door Closes, Another Opens

Piercing the corporate veil has been substantially limited in English law since Prest v. Petrodel. This contraction coincides with the development of the direct liability doctrine which attaches liability directly on the parent company. The authors argue that the shift from using piercing the corporate veil to direct liability is a positive development as it gives English courts a better tool to combat the abuse of separate legal personality. However, compared the English doctrines with their counterparts under the U.S. laws, it is argued that the much broader U.S. piercing doctrine makes the expansion of direct liability doctrine unnecessary in the United States.