As the prevalence of vertical common ownership (VCO), its effects on competition and market performance in relevant industrial chains are on the rise. This paper investigates the effects of vertical common ownership (VCO) on upstream competition under a variety of corporate governance structures, and explores the corresponding mechanisms. We find that VCO gives rise to two countervailing effects: forward co-governance effect which is upstream procompetitive, and backward co-governance effect which facilitates upstream collusion. As a result, VCO could conditionally boost tacit collusion between upstream firms and subsequently, harm performance of the vertically related industry, or conversely. Furthermore, comparing to vertical separation, VCO facilitates upstream collusion and harm industrial performance if the governance concentration (GC) of the upstream firm acquired by common owner enhances, and (or) the backward cross governance right (CGR) of the common owner rises. By contrast, VCO hinders upstream collusion and promotes industrial performance if the GC of the downstream firm acquired by common owner diminishes, and (or) the common owner’s forward CGR weakens. Finally, VCO may result in the upstream anticompetitive effect to a greater extent relative to vertical merger as well as passive vertical integration.