Plaintiffs routinely try to impute the activities of US subsidiary companies to their non-US parents in an effort to obtain jurisdiction over the parents in American courts. While there is broad agreement as to the general principles of law to be applied in addressing the question of parental responsibility, judicial rulings are very fact-specific, and not at all consistent with one another. Notably, some decisions turn on a review of the facts giving rise to the claim, while in others the courts focus on the general operation of the parent subsidiary relationship at issue. In both cases, a familiarity with the rules that courts are likely to apply can allow for advance planning, and help minimize the chances that a court will find that jurisdiction exists.

This special issue of The World in US Courts is devoted exclusively to the parent-subsidiary relationship, and discusses the circumstances under which US courts will and will not impute a subsidiary’s actions to its parent for purposes of determining whether the parent must remain in a case. An Executive Summary appears below, describing the principal points that we draw from the cases. A more detailed summary with discussions of specific cases follows for those readers wishing to study the issue in further detail and to consider its application in the context of their situations.