Legal personality can be used as a highly effective shield against civil liability claims.
The fact that a company or other entity can easily be recognized as a separate legal entity means that risks can be compartmentalized, by isolating a particular activity and its associated liabilities within a watertight estate. The great freedom with which it is now possible to create structures endowed with legal personality, and the rule of autonomy of the patrimony of legal entities, which is given great force, call into question the idea of corporate responsibility. This freedom continues in the possibility of transferring liabilities as part of restructuring operations.
Couldn't we attach more importance to the company, i.e. to economic activity? This would encourage the same sphere of responsibility to be applied to both production channels (including subcontractors) and the company's beneficiaries (i.e. shareholders). We need to question the relevance of this approach, which would bring risk closer to those who benefit from the activity generating the risk.
The importance given today to the patrimonial autonomy of legal persons in most legal systems prompts us to question this ultimately rather mysterious notion of legal personality, from the point of view of tort law.
