ringfencing
n.— «Hoping to inoculate its unregulated businesses from the utility’s financial misery, PG&E split up its corporate family into distinct entities using a complicated technique known as “ringfencing.” The approach made it difficult to seize the assets of other PG&E subsidiaries to pay the bills of the destitute utility.» —“Federal appeals court revives $4.6 billion claim against PG&E” by Michael Liedtke in San Francisco Mercury News (San Jose, California) Jan. 10, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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