And why that relationship should be Cortebert -> Unitas, but not Unitas -> Cortebert, which, if at all, might be more plausible?
Why do you think it would be more plausible ?
Cortebert was one of the most inventing company of that time, so in that terms, Cortebert seems much more as "meister" to Unitas than vice verse.... Especially if we look at roots and tradition, since Cortebert is founded in 1790, right? Disclaimer: it is just mine personal opinion

Mistery about similarity of Cortebert 727 and UT 285, same as Cortebert 736 <=> UT 6431 is still unsolved, in terms who is father and who is son... Common sense says that Cortebert as old vendor of pocket watches had more resources to produce ebauche to Unitas. On the other hand, economic logic says that Cortebert cut expenses by making specific orders from Unitas.... We all know about Cortebert pocket watches with Unitas 6497/8 and 6431/6445 movements...
Keyless work is not so important in that comparison, it is usually different in much more similar models from same vendor and in same family of movements...
My point of view is that Cortebert somehow "payed a debt" after WW2 for being in tight cooperation with Italy, through Perseo brand etc. More to add, we are all aware of similarity of Molnia and Cortebert movements, which 'strangely' occurs after WW2... so it could be a part of "war damage". Maybe Soviet Union just took machines or copycat movement (Cort 620) or it is done through some other sort of "cooperation", who knows...
There are rumors that Cortebert records vanished in fire during 1950, symptomatic?
Finally, Omega bought Cortebert in 1962, that is a weird fact I found recently somewhere on web...