You want to buy Bob's Delicatessen, a business which makes a tidy profit with their storefront schlepping sandwiches to the local cube farm dwellers.
Bob's Deli has a number of on-going costs, like the lease for their storefront, contracts with suppliers to deliver goods, maybe a business loan from a local bank that got them going in the first place.
These are all liabilities that you, the new buyer, must take on. You can't just rule from on high and say these business deals were with the old Bob's Deli and go away with the purchase. An example of a purchaser (apparently/allegedly) trying to say that former liabilities no longer apply: Disney buying up Fox, or Lucasfilm, and saying they no longer have to pay royalties out to authors who wrote novelizations of films, or expanded universe properties[1]
Those are liabilities of the business; not you personally, the controlling shareholder. If the business's liabilities exceed its assets, you take the business through bankruptcy; you are not personally liable (generally, with limited exceptions).
Bob's Deli has a number of on-going costs, like the lease for their storefront, contracts with suppliers to deliver goods, maybe a business loan from a local bank that got them going in the first place.
These are all liabilities that you, the new buyer, must take on. You can't just rule from on high and say these business deals were with the old Bob's Deli and go away with the purchase. An example of a purchaser (apparently/allegedly) trying to say that former liabilities no longer apply: Disney buying up Fox, or Lucasfilm, and saying they no longer have to pay royalties out to authors who wrote novelizations of films, or expanded universe properties[1]
[1]https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/19/21578621/disney-alan-dea...