Not quite. In the US this condition is handled at the back end. Running a corporation or LLC without sufficient capitalization can be grounds for piercing the liability shield in a lawsuit.

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Aurornis 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Running a corporation or LLC without sufficient capitalization can be grounds for piercing the liability shield in a lawsuit.

Which is exactly how it should be handled, IMO: Deal with the abuse situations directly.

Forcing new companies to capitalize with an arbitrary amount of money at time of founding penalizes small players who want to start a company. It's also not a hurdle at all for large players who want to commit large frauds.

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dyauspitr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Is the gmbh pierce proof? Because then I like the situation where if you start with $25,000 under no circumstance can they get past the liability shield.

	▲	Sebb767 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Usually, yes. There are a few exceptions, such as serious misconduct, tax fraud and not declaring insolvency when necessary. But as long as you're following the law, you're fine.

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Zak 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have the impression the situations where that actually happens are at least arguably serious misconduct, and usually targeted at someone with significant assets.

A construction company that pockets ten million dollars and doesn't build anything probably can't shield its owner this way, but a single-developer software consultancy that pockets ten thousand dollars and delivers buggy code can.

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rayiner 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In theory it’s based on whether the owner of the company intended to run it under capitalized in an effort to shirk liability.

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jt2190 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But the larger point still stands: Limited liability was granted “on the front end” without the entity needing to demonstrate a minimum amount of capital. You’re only pointing out that in the U.S. that it’s possible that “on the back end” the owners of the entity might become personally liable.

	▲	rayiner an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, i’m just elaborating on OP’s point. The US system is different and basically more optimistic on the front end.

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3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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nekusar 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thats cause the software and computing industry early on, disclaimed all liability.

"Computers are hard, yo!". It devalues the profession.

And I thought no liability was bad enough... But no. Now its LLMs and " for entertainment purposes only". I take it management and leadership also read that, and don't give one fuck.

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Zak an hour ago | parent [-]

The ability to build reliable software has existed for a long time. Commercial airlines make heavy use of it, and serious failures are vanishingly rare.

The problem is building software to those standards of reliability is expensive and slow. Consumer software never justifies it. Business software rarely does. If you want me to accept liability for the consequences of bugs in code I write, I'm giving you a schedule five times as long and a price twenty times as high.

	▲	ApolloFortyNine 28 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		>Commercial airlines make heavy use of it, and serious failures are vanishingly rare. Is this a joke? There's a major outage effecting flights at least yearly. The Delta one is from May... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Southwest_Airlines_schedu... [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2026/05/0...

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paulsutter 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

While extreme cases are the easiest to imagine, in real life the plaintiff almost always argues to pierce the veil and the defendant always argues the opposite, and both sides earnestly believe that they are right.

	▲	jobs_throwaway 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		And in real life piercing the veil is extremely exceptional
	▲	CPLX 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yeah but the veil doesn’t get pierced that’s super rare, which is more important than everyone’s emotional state.

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glad_duck 27 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Haven't heard anything about LLC capitalization in this context. Liability shield can be pierced, but only if LLC is misused (i.e. "when the company is treated as a personal "alter ego" and used to commit fraud, injustice, or illegal acts"). Lack of capitalization is not one of the reasons as long as you treat it as a company, not your wallet.

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gunapologist99 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Have to prove fraud to get there. "Under" capitalization is a judgment call. Effectively, it's very rare. An LLC launches with effectively zero dollars literally dozens of times a day.

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woah an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

This is a core difference between common law and civil law. In common law systems, things tend to get sorted out after the fact, with a judge's discretion, only if things go really wrong. In civil law systems they try to design a perfect system of laws that makes problems impossible.