Squire Patton Boggs Adds Competition Partner in Brussels and Madrid
3rd October 2022
Squire Patton Boggs has appointed Gorka Navea as a partner in its Competition-Antitrust Practice Group. Mr Navea has had a distinguished career in competition law, both in private practice and for more than a decade as a senior legal officer at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition (DG-COMP). Mr. Navea will be based in the firm’s Madrid and Brussels offices, expanding and strengthening the firm’s competition law offering.
Diarmuid Ryan, Global Chair of Squire Patton Boggs’ Competition-Antitrust Practice, said, “We welcome Gorka to the firm. He is a seasoned and highly experienced competition law practitioner, with all the knowledge that comes with being one of the leading cartels and merger review specialists in the EU. We already have a very strong EU competition law team and the addition of Gorka will not only further strengthen that team, but crucially provide us with a best-in-class Spanish competition law offering.”
Managing partner of the Madrid office, Teresa Zueco, said, “Gorka will be an invaluable part of our Madrid team working closely with booming corporate practice and our Spanish and international clients to deliver the investment and merger opportunities they are pursuing. With the long-term trend of increasing scrutiny and enforcement by competition authorities, our clients will benefit enormously from our having a stronger competition law offering in Brussels and right here in Spain.”
Commenting on his arrival Mr. Navea said, “Joining Squire Patton Boggs has given me the opportunity to fulfil a long-held ambition to combine my EU-level practice with a real focus on Spanish competition issues. Squire Patton Boggs has a top-tier Competition – Antitrust practice with an excellent reputation; this, together with a leading global M&A practice and a dynamic presence in Spain, made the firm the obvious choice for me.”
Mr. Navea has more than 20 years of experience in EU and Spanish competition law. Following a traineeship at the European Parliament (1998), he worked in Brussels and Madrid at leading international firms, before joining DG-COMP in 2008. In the ten years that Mr. Navea spent at DG-COMP, he has been at the forefront of merger and antitrust investigations in a wide range of sectors, including TMT, pharmaceutical, healthcare, food, manufacturing, and transportation. From 2013 to 2014, he served in the cabinet of EC Vice President and Commissioner for Competition Joaquín Almunia, before becoming Deputy Head of Unit of DG-COMP’s Cartel Directorate, overseeing several high-profile EC cartel investigations. In 2018, Mr. Navea returned to private practice as partner in the antitrust group at Wilson Sonsini.
