Global law firm Reed Smith has advised Sonoco Products Company before the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on its clearance of the Weidenhammer Packaging Group acquisition. This follows the firm’s role advising Sonoco on the all aspects of the acquisition of Weidenhammer for €286m ($383m) which was completed on 31 October last year.

Following announcement of the transaction, the CMA carried out an in-depth investigation of the competitive effect of the transaction in the UK (Phase 1 and Phase 2) over a 10-month period from September 2014 to May 2015, before clearing the deal with no conditions attached. The Reed Smith team worked closely with the Sonoco teams in Europe and the United States, as well as with economists and the CMA, through three hearings and the submission of thousands of pages of materials to obtain the unconditional clearance.

Reed Smith competition partner Marjorie Holmes, commented:

“This is the best possible outcome for Sonoco. This was an unusual case because the UK investigation involved a single plant in Bradford, UK. Sonoco had to obtain a derogation to allow the integration of Weidenhammer’s 1,100 employees operating in 12 of the 13 product facilities in Germany, Russia and other parts of the world outside the UK, whilst running the UK plant separately with a monitoring trustee appointed.”

The Reed Smith team was led by partners Lex Eley (Washington D.C.) and Marjorie Holmes (London) and included partner Edward Miller (London); associates Caroline Klocko (Washington D.C.) and Laura-May Scott (London); as well as trainees Catherine Johnson, Emma Jones and Hannah Kong (all London).

ENDS

Note to Editors:

About Reed Smith

Reed Smith is a global relationship law firm, with more than 1,800 lawyers in 26 offices throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States.

For further information, please visit www.reedsmith.com or contact Annabelle Price (senior corporate communications executive EME) on +44 (0)20 3116 3787.