Competition Team Acts for Hillenbrand Industries on Competition Aspects of Air-Shield Transaction
LONDON (July 8, 2004) — On June 24, 2004, McDermott Will & Emery client Hillenbrand Industries, Inc. announced that it had completed the sale of the Air-Shields infant care business of its subsidiary Hill-Rom Company, Inc. to Dräger Medical AG and Co KGaA. The Firm advised Hillenbrand on the competition aspects of the transaction.
An international team of McDermott antitrust lawyers represented Hillenbrand in securing the necessary antitrust approvals to proceed with the transaction. It is particularly noteworthy that this was one of the first cases to be referred for an in-depth investigation under the new merger control regime in the United Kingdom. The transaction was referred by the UK Office of Fair Trading on December 18, 2003 to the UK Competition Commission, which conducted an in-depth investigation and published its report on 19 May. After a period of consultation on proposed remedies to alleviate the competition issues which the Competition Commission had found to exist in relation to a number of relevant markets, the Competition Commission published agreed undertakings on June 12, 2004, which enabled the transaction to proceed. In addition to the UK, we also assisted Hillenbrand in making the required notifications and securing clearances in Austria, Brazil, Spain and Portugal and in responding to a preliminary inquiry by the Federal Cartel Office in Germany.
The McDermott team was led by Washington, D.C. partner Joseph Winterscheid. The UK effort was headed in London by Ian Rose. Mr. Rose also coordinated with local counsel in Spain and Portugal in securing national antitrust clearances. Oliver Steffens, based in the Firm’s Munich office, covered the Austrian filing/clearance and dealings with the German Federal Cartel Office. Mr. Winterscheid coordinated the Brazilian filing with local counsel in Brazil from D.C.
