The Single Economic Unit Doctrine: from public to private enforcement

PT
A presente dissertação centra-se no conceito de empresa no âmbito do direito da concorrência.
Em particular, pretende-se responder à questão de saber como transpor este conceito, desenvolvido através de uma longa e labiríntica jurisprudência do Tribunal de Justiça da União Europeia (TJUE) a qual define empresa como qualquer entidade que exerça uma atividade económica, independentemente do seu estatuto jurídico -, do âmbito do public enforcement para o private enforcement.
Numa primeira parte, procura-se esmiuçar a jurisprudência do TJUE, para entender a lógica subjacente à mesma e identificar os objetivos que a orientam.
Pergunta-se, depois, em que medida esta pode ou deve ser aplicada no domínio das ações de responsabilidade por infrações jusconcorrenciais, as quais se têm tornado cada vez mais populares na sequência da entrada em vigor da Diretiva de Private Enforcement e das normas nacionais que a transpuseram.

ENG
Competition law has its own specific subjects, identified as undertakings by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The concept of undertaking has been progressively constructed by the case law of the Court of Justice over the last decades. The Court defines undertakings as economic units, regardless of their legal status. The Court’s disregard of legal personality in favour of economic reality has proved to be rather controversial, especially when used to attribute liability to a legal person other than the one that commits the antitrust infringement on the ground that they belong to the same economic unit or undertaking.
The case law on the concept of undertaking was originally developed in the context of public enforcement but, with the increasing popularity of actions for damages for competition law infringements throughout Europe, many questions are emerging about how to transpose the concept to the realm of private enforcement.
This book provides a structured analysis of EU case law on the concept of undertaking, as developed in public enforcement, and aims to provide answers to the challenges of applying the concept in actions for damages for competition law infringements.