Judgment_paragraph 107 · FLS Plast A/S v European Commission (C-243/12 P)

107The Court has already held that, as regards payment of a fine imposed for breach of the competition rules, the joint and several liability between two companies constituting an economic entity cannot be reduced to a type of security provided by the parent company in order to guarantee payment of the fine imposed on the subsidiary and that an argument that that parent company could not be ordered to pay a fine higher than the fine imposed on its subsidiary is therefore unfounded (see, to this effect, Case C‑50/12 P Kendrion v Commission EU:C:2013:771, paragraphs 56 and 58). This case-law takes account of the fact that the principle that penalties must be specific to the offender and the offence requires, in accordance with Article 23(3) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Articles [81 EC] and [82 EC] (OJ 2003 L 1, p. 1), that the amount of the fine to be paid jointly and severally must be determined by reference to the gravity of the infringement for which the undertaking concerned is considered individually responsible and the duration of the infringement (Joined Cases C‑247/11 P and C‑253/11 P Areva and Others v Commission EU:C:2014:257, paragraph 127 and the case-law cited).