Recital 4

(4) For the purposes of the rules on competition laid down in the Treaty, an undertaking is any entity, be it a natural or a legal person, engaged in an economic activity, regardless of its legal status and the way in which it is financed (6). The Court of Justice of the European Union has clarified that an entity ‘owning controlling shareholdings in a company’ and which ‘actually exercises that control by involving itself directly or indirectly in the management thereof’ must be considered as taking part in the economic activity of that company. The entity itself must therefore be regarded as an undertaking within the meaning of Article 107(1) of the Treaty (7). The Court of Justice has ruled that all entities that are controlled (on a legal or on a de facto basis) by the same entity are to be considered as a single undertaking (8).

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-06 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.