Whether there is unified operation of related activities will thus
be of concern primarily in those cases where the related activities are
separately owned or controlled but where, through arrangement, agreement
or otherwise, they are so performed as to constitute a unified business
system organized for a common business purpose. For example, a group of
separately incorporated, separately owned companies, may agree to
conduct their activities in such manner as to be for all intents and
purposes a single business system except for the fact that the ownership
and control of the individual segments of the business are retained, in
part or in whole, by the individual companies comprising the unified
business system. The various units may operate under a single trade
name; construct their establishment to appear identical; use identical
equipment; sell generally the same goods or provide the same type of
services, and, in some cases, at uniform standardized prices; and in
other respects appear to the persons utilizing their services or
purchasing their goods as being the same business. They also may arrange
for group purchasing and warehousing; for advertising as a single
business; and for standardization of their records, as well as their
credit, employment, and other business policies and practices. In such
circumstances the activities may well be performed through ``unified
operation'' sufficient to consider all of the related activities
performed by the group of units as constituting one enterprise, despite
the separate ownership of the various segments and despite the fact that
the individual units or segments may retain control as to some or all of
their own activities. That this is in accord with the congressional
intent is plain, since where the Congress intended that such
arrangements shall not bring a group of certain individual retail or
service establishments into a single enterprise, provision to accomplish
such exception was specifically included. (See Sec. 779.226, discussing
the proviso in section 3(r) with respect to certain franchise and other
specified arrangements entered into between independently owned retail
or service establishments and other businesses.)
