Bio

PhD (Commercial Law), UCT

LLM (Environmental Law), Natal/ now UKZN
LLB, UFH

Assoc Professor Brighton Murisa Mupangavanhu joined the Faculty's Department of Commercial Law as an Associate Professor: Corporate & Commercial Law on 1 September 2025, from UWC, where he was also an Associate Professor of Corporate and Finance Law. He obtained his PhD (Commercial Law) from UCT, his LLM in Environmental Law from Natal, now UKZN, and an LLB degree from UFH.

Research 

• Associate Prof Mupangavanhu conducts research in the following related areas of corporate law and financial law:
• Corporate decision-making legal principles (including corporate governance law)
• Corporate Finance and Capital/Financial Markets Laws
• Mergers and Acquisitions & related Competition Law principles
• Banking & Finance Law (including Commercial Transactions law)
• He has applied for and received research grants and awards to enable internationalisation and research visits. Further information on grants and awards received, and the research output inspired by such funding, is available here.
• Associate Prof Mupangavanhu recently led a research project entitled Accelerating Endogenous Knowledge Production in Africa – Contributions from Legal Research with a value of R1.2 million in terms of DHET subsidy. The project of eight papers was published by the PER in December 2024 as a special edition.

Teaching

• Corporations Law CML3001W at Intermediate level
• Competition Law CML4602S module (LLB elective) - course co-ordinator and lecturer
• Competition Law module CML5654S (LLM module) 

He will contribute lectures in other LLM modules such as Advanced Company Law; Corporate Financing; Corporate law & Governance when required to do so.

Postgraduate Supervision
Associate Prof Mupangavanhu supervises Doctoral and Master's students in his areas of research. To date, he has supervised to completion five Doctoral students and currently supervises four PhD/LLD students at both UWC and UCT. He has supervised to completion 15 Master of Laws students in areas of corporate law (broadly), competition law, commercial transactions law and financial law between 2016 and 2025.

Academic Leadership and National Profile

Associate Prof Mupangavanhu offers on-boarding training in South Africa and other parts of Southern Africa where he trains directors from company boards of companies including JSE-Listed companies. He also provides consulting services in the areas of corporate governance, corporate finance, and general commercial transactions law, e.g. in areas of mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance & financial markets law. While at UWC, he established an LLM in Corporate Law programme (in 2023) for which he designed these modules: 

• Mergers & Acquisitions Law
• Corporate Finance & Financial Markets Law
• Corporate Governance & Remedies Law
• Corporate Insolvency Law. 

Prof Mupangavanhu is often invited by universities such as UNISA to assist with review of PhD in Law (UNISA 2020); to mentor colleagues supervising doctoral students for the first time by co-supervising with them (UNISA – ongoing); to review CVs and application for promotions for academics (Wits and UP – from time to time); and to assist with supervising doctoral students (e.g. by UCT while at UWC, and UNISA, still ongoing).

International Profile

Associate Prof Mupangavanhu is growing his international profile, and is currently a Fellow at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, where he spent the 2020 Lent and Easter terms as a Visiting Fellow after receiving the Beaufort Colenso scholarship to visit Cambridge. He has visited other parts of Europe such as the Czech Republic where he visited Charles University and the Prague University of Economics and Business where he presented a paper at an Annual Conference titled Law in Business of Selected Member States of the European Union in November 2022. In March 2023, Associate Prof Mupangavanhu visited the University of Sheffield School of Law for networking purposes, and was hosted by the Sheffield Institute of Corporate and Commercial Law (SICCL) where he presented a SICCL-hosted public seminar on Corporate Citizenship and Consumer Justice in South Africa.

Publications

Associate Prof Mupangavanhu primarily publishes in corporate law, banking and finance law. He has journal articles and books in the pipeline in the areas of corporate finance, financial markets and competition law. Visit his Google Scholar page for selected publications.