American English generally uses singular for collective nouns. British English generally uses plural. There are exceptions (such as if the name itself is pluralised), but that's the general rule. Whether its "peering past the corporate veil" or not is neither here nor there, as they treat all collective nouns this way.

No. Singular nouns require singular verbs, in both countries.

Sure, but there is some disagreement across the pond on which nouns are singular.

Brits would be more likely to say “Led Zeppelin are on stage”, while Americans would prefer “Led Zeppelin is on stage”, and the reason is the disagreement between whether Led Zeppelin is singular (one band) or plural (4 people constituting the band.)

I wish you could provide some more details or substance so that I might know why your experiences contradict mine.