A story today in the Washington Post reports:
The three-member Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, which hears appeals from administrative law judges' decisions, is about to decide whether Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulators should be allowed to "pierce the corporate veil" and go after the individuals running companies to hold them, or successor "alter ego" companies, responsible for fines and other enforcement actions.Posted by Marcia Oddi at March 23, 2004 08:20 AM"These cases involve issues of apportioning responsibility for abatement and penalties," said Earl R. Ohman, general counsel for the commission. "Piercing the corporate veil is a standard legal doctrine, but it's not common for OSHA to seek this kind of relief." Instead, the board usually settles workplace health and safety disputes between OSHA and employers that stem from federal workplace inspections.
A favorable decision from the three-member board could have an impact on how OSHA imposes fines and their amounts. It would make it possible to go after individuals when companies create complex corporate structures and it would allow OSHA to assess higher "repeat" fines on a company that it considers a successor to a company that might go bankrupt and then resume largely the same business.