Ball Acquisition of Rexam

In January 2016, the European Commission cleared the proposed acquisition of beverage can manufacturer Rexam by its competitor Ball, subject to the divestment of 12 plants in the European Economic Area. In June 2016, the FTC cleared the proposed acquisition subject to the divestment of eight plants in the United States. Compass Lexecon advised the beverage can manufacturer Ball throughout the investigation of the transaction, both in Europe and in the United States. We provided several economic analyses aimed at assessing the potential effects of Ball’s acquisition of Rexam. The European Commission and the FTC had concerns related to the competitive constraints remaining post-merger in the can manufacturing segment. Our work mainly related to the calculation of market shares, the assessment of the geographic closeness of competition between the parties, the calculation of freight cost efficiencies arising after the merger and the evaluation of market concentration pre- and post-merger. We also assessed the effect of the different divestment alternatives on each of these analyses. The Compass Lexecon team in Europe consisted of Daniel Westrik, Catalina Campillo, Enrique Andreu, Scott Holbrook and Neil Dryden, who assisted Ball’s legal advisers Claire Jeffs, John Boyce and Jordan Ellison of Slaughter and May. The team in the U.S. consisted of Dennis Carlton, Chip Bamberger, Lynette Neumann and Lauren Gumbiner, who assisted Ball’s legal advisers John Harkrider, Nicholas Gaglio and Mark Alexander of Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP.