VEIL NOT FAIL

by Garrett Sutton ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2022

A concise but thorough introduction to strategically protecting personal assets from corporate liability.

According to attorney Sutton, even a business organization that’s incorporated for limited liability protections can be vulnerable to litigation that attacks its owners’ assets. This is called “piercing the corporate veil,” he says, noting that it’s a strategy that meets with success approximately 50% of the time. Furthermore, he asserts, smaller corporations—and especially single-member and small LLCs—are particularly vulnerable, as they’re not typically covered by various versions of blanket protection: “Your business has a bull’s-eye on it. As we’ve learned, that bull’s-eye never goes away. It remains on every business and asset holding entity as a target for anyone suing to hit and perforate into your personal asset column.” The author explains the core of a defensive posture that observes all the necessary “corporate formalities,” or business requirements, in order to survive in a litigious society. In order to demonstrate the fundamental aspects of that plan, he furnishes an impressively comprehensive tour of the relevant legal landscape, including the nature of the aforementioned formalities, the various kinds of protective entities, and the ways in which corporate veils can be pierced. He even provides a consideration of “reverse piercing,” in which a creditor seeks to satisfy the debt of a private individual by suing a corporation that the individual owns. Finally, the book supplies a series of brief synopses of the relevant legal landscapes in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Japan.

Sutton’s meticulousness is impressive; despite the brevity of this book, he covers a dizzying expanse of juridical territory. His expertise is inarguable; he’s also the personal asset protection attorney for noted business-book author Robert Kiyosaki, who contributes a foreword. (The book is part of the Rich Dad Advisor series.) The author’s counsel will be particularly important for those who are associated with smaller companies, which are both more vulnerable legally and more inclined to ignore practices that protect them: “it can be tempting to dispense with the formalities, failing to designat[e] officers (or managers) and a board of directors, have regular meetings, or keep written records….But without the formalities, it’s hard to prove that you’re operating the way a corporation should and thus would be entitled to its benefits.” And although the topic is somewhat less than seductive, Sutton admirably attempts—mostly with success—to give his discussions a lighthearted touch. He draws examples from popular culture (Superman, the Wizard of Oz) as well as history; for example, he cheekily interprets the American Revolution as a case of the Colonies piercing the veil of King George III. Much more importantly, the author conveys a technically formidable subject in prose that’s always clear and accessible and mostly shorn of legalistic jargon. Moreover, Sutton analyzes more than a dozen real cases, offering concrete illustrations of legal principles that might otherwise seem abstract to the uninitiated. Overall, it’s a rigorous and wonderfully synoptic introduction to a prohibitive but important topic.

A systematically organized and expert legal primer.

Pub Date: July 26, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-947588-16-5

Page Count: 192

Publisher: BZK Press

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2022

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BUSINESS | GENERAL BUSINESS