Lennard's Carrying Co Ltd v Asiatic Petroleum Co Ltd [1915] AC 705 is a famous decision by the House of Lords on the ability to impose liability upon a corporation.

c. 60), stating that a ship owner would not be liable for losses if an event happened without 'actual fault or privity'.

It has no mind of its own any more than it has a body of its own; its active and directing will must consequently be sought in the person of somebody who for some purposes may be called an agent, but who is really the directing mind and will of the corporation, the very ego and centre of the personality of the corporation.

Mr. Lennard therefore was the natural person to come on behalf of the owners and give full evidence not only about the events of which I have spoken, and which related to the seaworthiness of the ship, but about his own position and as to whether or not he was the life and soul of the company.

After the Lennard case, the alter ego theory has become the most powerful method of imposing liability on a corporation.