shell company
noun1
Business, Law A company that engages in no substantive business activities, but instead exists as a vehicle for legal or financial transactions, typically to shield another party from liability or other issues.
- It was a shell company and, the SEC alleges, never had researchers, research plans or any scientific resources.2003 November 15, Tony Levene, “Capital letters”, in The Guardian:
- This luxury-loving and profligate shell company is registered at a betting shop on the Caledonian Road, an unlovely thoroughfare in North London on which you'd be more likely to find amphetamines than a top-notch lawyer.2018, Oliver Bullough, chapter 2, in Moneyland, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 19:
- Related terms
- shell game, ghost company