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Natura Gracia

Partner and Head of UK Antitrust and Foreign Investment Group, London

“Being a good lawyer is more than applying the law. It’s about adapting to new situations and new laws and being attuned to commercial realities. I bring pragmatism and tailored solutions to my clients. They benefit from my deep experience in a range of sectors and areas of law and I advise them on all aspects of competition law, but also on areas such as State aid, foreign subsidies, public procurement and utilities regulation. They value my ability to join the dots.”

Overview

Education

Published works

Overview

Natura has over 20 years’ experience advising clients on EU and UK competition law. She heads our UK team as well as the Linklaters State aid and subsidies practice.

She advises on a wide range of competition matters, including complex global mergers involving filings under merger control and foreign investment regimes in multiple jurisdictions. She deals with the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) regularly in the context of merger notifications (including negotiating conditions for such mergers) as well as market studies and competition investigations. In addition to advising on mainstream competition mandates, she specialises in EU State aid and UK subsidies, having advised on a number of State aid cases, including during Covid, and having represented clients before the EU courts on those matters. Her practice includes advising on public procurement and UK price controls for water and energy as well as other sector regulation issues, including compliance with the EU energy unbundling rules.

Work highlights
  • Barratt Developments plc on the UK merger control aspects of its acquisition of Redrow, cleared in Phase 1 by the CMA with commitments
  • Bharti Global on merger control and foreign investment filings arising from its acquisition of a minority stake in BT Group plc
  • Brookfield on the merger control and foreign investment filings associated with its £2.2bn acquisition of Network International Holdings Plc
  • National Grid on merger control, regulatory and NSIA filings for the sale of its gas transmission business to a consortium led by Macquarie Asset Management
  • Industry players on the CMA’s market studies into infant formula and civil engineering
  • in relation to price controls in water, gas and electricity distribution, including references and appeals of such decisions to the CMA for Northern Gas Networks (GD2) and Northumbrian Water (PR19)
  • Thames Water on the State aid, regulatory and public procurement aspects of the Tideway project
  • the UK Government on subsidy, procurement and merger control aspects of the development of the Sizewell C new nuclear plant
  • on State aid investigations by the European Commission for State support during Covid-19, to energy projects and to financial institutions during the global financial crisis

Education

2006 College of Law, Diploma in English Commercial Law, European Young Lawyers Scheme 2001 - 2002 University of Durham, LLM in International and European Legal Studies and 1997 - 2001 LLB, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain).

Published works

  • Natura Gracia and Jennifer Willis, “Reclaiming Europe - is the FSR (part of) the solution?” ERA Forum - Springer, August 2025
  • Natura Gracia, “Ministers need to strike a regulatory balance if they want to boost investment” The Times, September 2024