Generally speaking - yes. The company is a legal person and it is that legal person with whom the liabilities lie, not the owners directly. However, it is possible for the old and new owners to enter into a separate contract for the sale of the ownership of the company whereby as part of that contract the old owner takes on the liabilities from the company - generally that will be liabilities in terms of debts. I'm not sure whether product liability can be hived off like that.Where a company goes into liquidation, the situation is slightly different. Here, it is generally the assets of the company that are sold off - not the company itself. Those assets include brand name, leases, stock etc. What often happens is that a new company is set up, which buys only some of the assets (including the name) from the old company - in such a case many of the liabilities (including product and service liability) would not be passed over. So it looks like the company itself has been taken over, but in fact it hasn't.Sorry for the long answer, but it's a complex area and this is my best understanding - there are probably some nuances which I haven't got right.
Andrzej Kowalski ● 2379d