While company law makes great efforts to maintain the separation of different legal entities, other areas of law increasingly emphasise the common responsibility of corporate groups. One of the fields shaping this emerging principle is competition law, where focusing on the whole group rather than its individual members is increasingly becoming the norm. But this approach is still far from being uniformly accepted. While EU competition law is pushing ahead, US antitrust law is said to take a rather critical stance. Against this background, this chapter examines the functions performed by a unitary perspective on corporate groups. The main goal is to show that at least three important functions must be distinguished in EU competition law, each of which has its own implications. Only when these are properly understood can it be determined where the group perspective is appropriate and where it is not. This is shown by the example of current discussions, for example, on the liability of sister companies and on possible applications in the area of liability for damages. Finally, the analysis in this chapter also aims to contribute to a better understanding of the different approaches in EU and US competition law.

This chapter provides an overview of the EU regulatory framework applicable to standardization. In particular, it covers the relationship between international, European, and national standardization bodies and the standards they produce. On the general level, it explains the EU’s New Approach policy for technical standardization, discusses the legal value of the European harmonized standards, and reviews the most recent case law of the European Court of Justice on standards’ role and value in the EU legal order. It also examines whether and when standards development organizations (SDOs) can breach EU competition law, namely, Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, by reviewing the relevant case law of the European Court of Justice and the Decisions of the European Commission. In particular, this chapter offers an in-depth analysis of the EU Regulation 1025/2010 and the Commissions’ Horizontal Guidelines, especially with regard to their applicability to ICT standards and ICT SDOs, focusing on the procedural requirements for these institutions to legitimize their standards and to limit or escape possible antitrust liability.