Dechert LLP assisted The WhiteWave Foods Company (“WhiteWave”), a leading consumer packaged food and beverage company in North America and Europe, in obtaining U.S. and EU antitrust/competition law clearances, enabling WhiteWave to close on its US$12.5 billion acquisition by Danone SA (“Danone”), a global food company, based in Paris.
To secure clearances to close, Danone and WhiteWave agreed with the United States Department of Justice to divest Danone’s U.S. dairy subsidiary Stonyfield Farms, Inc. and with the European Commission to divest Danone’s "growing-up milk" business in Belgium.
The cross-border Dechert antitrust/competition team advising WhiteWave included D.C.-based partners Paul Denis and Craig Falls and Paris-based partner Melanie Thill-Tayara. D.C.-based associates Anna Aryankalayil, James Van Strander and Blair Kuykendall and Paris-based associates Marion Provost and Simon Hetsch assisted in the representation.
With more than 45 dedicated antitrust/competition lawyers in Brussels, Frankfurt, New York, Paris, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., Dechert’s antitrust/competition practice has the global capability to develop creative solutions to the most difficult antitrust issues in merger clearance, litigation and business planning. This trial-ready group is known for clearing mergers under antitrust scrutiny and defending deals that have come under fire from enforcers and private litigants. The firm is consistently ranked among the leaders in legal directories and was named Antitrust Team of the Year by Chambers USA in 2014 and was shortlisted for the same award in 2015 and 2016. Dechert’s antitrust/competition group also created DAMITT, the Dechert Antitrust Merger Investigation Timing Tracker, a proprietary database and a quarterly report providing unique insights to answer critical questions about the timing and trends of U.S. antitrust merger review.
WhiteWave manufactures, markets and sells plant-based foods and beverages, coffee creamers and beverages, premium dairy products, and organic produce under widely-recognized and leading brands, including Silk, So Delicious, Vega, International Delight, Horizon Organic, Wallaby Organic, Earthbound Farm, Alpro and Provamel. Danone is dedicated to bringing health through food to as many people as possible, focusing on fresh dairy products, early life nutrition, waters, and medical nutrition, which Danone sells under brands such as Activia, Actimel, Danette, Dannon, Danonino, evian, Volvic, Nutrilon/Aptamil, Nutricia, Oikos, Prostokvashino, Aqua, Bonafont, Mizone, Blédina, and Cow & Gate.
About Dechert
Dechert is a global specialist law firm with a deep bench of experts focused on sectors with the greatest complexities and highest regulatory demands. We deliver practical commercial insight and judgment to our clients’ most important matters. Nothing stands in the way of giving clients the best of the firm’s entrepreneurial energy and seamless collaboration in a way that is distinctively Dechert.
