Unternehmensidentität als Haftungsgrund im europäischen Kartellrecht

The concept of an “undertaking” is highly complex and has occupied the ECJ for decades, as it raises several problem areas such as the liability of (uninvolved) parent companies and their subsidiaries, the concept of economic continuity or the fact that the fines against a group company can be determined by the group turnover. The author takes up these and other cases in which the ECJ has applied the concept of an undertaking and points out numerous discrepancies which become clear in the court’s case-by-case decision-making practice. In doing so, he develops an approach which can be applied to all problem areas, according to which the corporate law structures of the legal entities belonging to the undertaking must be consistently overcome.