Salomon vs Salomon
Chapter 1 of Landmark Cases in Company Law by V. Barnes and S. Wheeler (eds), Hart Publishing, Forthcoming
Faculty of Laws University College London Law Research Paper No. 19/2023
19 Pages Posted: 13 Oct 2023
Date Written: October 12, 2023
Abstract
Salomon v Salomon is widely regarded as the most significant case in English and wider Commonwealth company law history. It is typically the subject of introductory company law lectures and textbook chapters throughout much of the common law world, and no proper account of the history of the business corporation is complete without it. Accordingly, few would disagree that Salomon is a landmark – if not the landmark – case in English company law. At the same time, though, Salomon is also one of the most misunderstood cases in English legal history, and even today I suspect that many students and even teachers of company law continue to labour under certain misapprehensions about the case. In this seminar, I will argue that, far from being a so-called “landmark” company law case, Salomon is a case that should never really have come to court in the first place, or at least that should never have had to proceed beyond the initial trial court stage. As such, the principal significance of Salomon’s case resides not on a doctrinal but rather on a factual level, in enabling the authoritative reputational redemption of the Jewish defendant Aron Salomon and his family in the face of a barrage of hostile, unfair and manifestly false imputations as to their perceived conduct, motives and character traits.
Keywords: company law, corporate personality, legal history, anti-semitism, United Kingdom
JEL Classification: K10, K20, K22, N60, N63, N80, N83, N90, N93, Z10, Z12, Z13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation