In separate closings on August 1 and August 16, 2018, Bayer AG, a global enterprise with core competencies in the Life Science fields of health care and agriculture, completed one of the largest antitrust enforcement divestitures in history by selling their agricultural businesses and assets for US$9 billion to German chemical company BASF SE. The assets included Bayer's canola, soybean and vegetable seed businesses, as well as its Liberty herbicide business, all of which competed with Monsanto products. German in-house lawyers Thomas Reuter (corporate) and Paul Fort (merger control) led the global effort for Bayer, assisted in the US by John Fred (antitrust) and in Canada by Curtis Bunz (corporate).