Ball Corporation wins unconditional approval to acquire Benepack’s European beverage cans business

Compass Lexecon advised can manufacturer Ball on the acquisition of Benepack’s beverage can manufacturing plants in Belgium and Hungary. We assisted with proceedings before the German Federal Cartel Office, which cleared the transaction unconditionally in December 2025.

Situation

Ball and Benepack are both active in the design, manufacture, and sale of aluminium beverage cans. The acquirer, Ball, is a global supplier of aluminium packaging solutions with numerous manufacturing sites, including in Germany, France, Austria, and other European countries. Benepack has been active in Europe since 2020, operating a plant in Belgium and building a new plant in Hungary. Balls considers that the transaction allows it to further optimise and expand its European manufacturing network to serve a growing base of beverage customers across Europe.

Our role

Compass Lexecon was involved in the merger proceedings before the German Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) since the pre-notification phase. Our team assisted Ball and Benepack in preparing the merger notification, responding to the FCO’s information requests, and conducting several analyses to assess the impact of the transaction of the market.

Outcome

The transaction was cleared unconditionally by the FCO in December 2025.Commenting on the clearance, Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt, stated that “There are a handful of beverage can manufacturers in Europe. Benepack currently has a limited market presence. Nevertheless, we closely examined the competitive effects of the merger as Benepack has entered an already concentrated market as a new competitor and has expanded relatively quickly. While the proposed merger will further strengthen the already strong market position of the acquirer, Ball, it ultimately did not raise any serious competition concerns. Even after the merger, customers will have several competing suppliers to choose from.”

The team

The Compass Lexecon team advising Ball was led by Neil Dryden and Thilo Klein, and included Jasper Haller, Hendrik Inselmann, Katharina Momsen, Juan Wences, Sebastian Veijola and Ali Musali. We worked closely with Ball’s external counsels from Slaughter and May led by Alex Chadd and including Victoria Turner and Hazel Doran, and Hengeler Mueller led by Christoph Wilken and Daniel Higer.