41In so doing, EU competition law, in targeting the activities of undertakings, enshrines as the decisive criterion the existence of unity of conduct on the market, without allowing the formal separation between various companies that results from their separate legal personalities to preclude such unity for the purposes of the application of the competition rules (see, to that effect, judgments of 14 July 1972, Imperial Chemical Industries v Commission, 48/69, EU:C:1972:70, paragraph 140, and of 14 December 2006, Confederación Española de Empresarios de Estaciones de Servicio, C‑217/05, EU:C:2006:784, paragraph 41). The concept of ‘undertaking’, therefore covers any entity engaged in an economic activity, irrespective of the legal status of that entity and the way in which it is financed, and thus defines an economic unit even if in law that economic unit consists of several persons, natural or legal (see, to that effect, judgments of 10 September 2009, Akzo Nobel and Others v Commission, C‑97/08 P, EU:C:2009:536, paragraphs 54 and 55, and of 27 April 2017, Akzo Nobel and Others v Commission, C‑516/15 P, EU:C:2017:314, paragraphs 47 and 48). That economic unit consists of a unitary organisation of personal, tangible and intangible elements, which pursues a specific economic aim on a long-term basis and can contribute to the commission of an infringement of the kind in Article 101(1) TFEU (judgment of 1 July 2010, Knauf Gips v Commission, C‑407/08 P, EU:C:2010:389, paragraphs 84 and 86).
Source: EUR-Lex, © European Union, 1998-2026. Reuse authorised under Decision 2011/833/EU.