Judgment_paragraph 101 · Alliance One International Inc., formerly Standard Commercial Corp., and Standard Commercial Tobacco Co. Inc. v European Commission and European Commission v Alliance One International Inc. and Others (C-628/10 P, C-14/11 P)

101As regards the substance, the Court has previously ruled that the exercise of joint control, by two parent companies who are independent of each other, of their subsidiary does not, in principle, preclude a finding by the Commission of the existence of an economic unit comprising one of those parent companies and the subsidiary concerned, and that this applies even if the proportion of the subsidiary’s share capital owned by that parent company is smaller than that owned by the other parent company (see, to that effect, AceaElectrabel Produzione v Commission, paragraph 64). That being the case, a fortiori a parent company and its subsidiary, which is itself a parent company of the company which has committed an infringement, can both be deemed to be members of an economic unit which includes the latter company.