Limited Company/assets of owner

Recent detailed reporting on the personal assets of the owner of a limited company which has received much publicity re non payment of redundancy has made me think is the distinction between a corporate body and a person somewhat blurred. a quote says "he can well afford to pay the workers". Is limited liability being ignored?

dewdrop said:

Recent detailed reporting on the personal assets of the owner of a limited company which has received much publicity re non payment of redundancy has made me think is the distinction between a corporate body and a person somewhat blurred. a quote says "he can well afford to pay the workers". Is limited liability being ignored?

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Agreed but reporting on something does not mean it it is fact.

Take an example Bob is a builder and he sold a site which he owned personally making a profit of €5m in 2006. His wife told him put it on deposit. Bob has a building company which carried on trading. In 2011 Bob company ran out of money and he made all his staff redundant. Bob may have a moral obligation to pay the redundancy to the staff but if he ran the company properly than he has no legal obligation to pay it himself. By properly I mean that the limited liability would not be pierced by a court.