Bio

Willard Mwemba is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Department of Commercial Law. Dr Mwemba began his career in Competition Law at the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission in Zambia, and worked at the Competition Authority in Zambia where he handled high profile cases and initiated investigations into high profile cartels. Dr Mwemba then joined the COMESA Competition Commission in January 2013 where he rose to the position of Director of the Mergers and Monopolies Department, as its first head. 

Dr Mwemba is currently the CEO at the COMESA Competition Commission, where he continues to play a key role in the development of competition and consumer protection laws, guidelines and operational manuals in different countries, and advises governments on the significance of preserving competitive markets and the consequences of their absence. Willard is responsible for regularly reviewing regional competition/ trade policy so as to advise and make representation to the COMESA Council of Ministers. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Competition Training Centre for Middle East and Africa, and is also a member of the International Chamber of Commerce, where he is involved in looking at the state of competition laws in small and insular economies.

Willard has been instrumental in assisting Member States strengthen their competition law enforcement. Among the countries he has directly assisted in the enforcement and strengthening of their competition laws include Ethiopia, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Madagascar and Eswatini. He has also assisted the East African Community Competition Authority, a supra national competition authority regulating competition in the East African Community. In his time at the COMESA Competition Commission, Willard has been instrumental in formulating and reviewing the COMESA legal framework with regard to competition law, has written extensively on the subject of competition law, and has spoken at several high profile fora. Dr Mwemba has often been invited as a guest lecturer on the subject at universities and colleges internationally. Among the universities where he has lectured competition law are the University of Zambia, the University of Mauritius, the University of Cape Town, and Queen’s University Belfast. He has written and contributed to scholarly articles for the Institute of European & Comparative Law/ Centre for Competition Law & Policy University of Oxford, International Bar Association, Concurrences, Global Competition Review and Afronomics, among others.

He holds several qualifications, among them a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and an LLB from the University of Zambia. Willard also holds a Masters degree in European Union Competition Law from University of London; Kings College and a PhD in Competition Law from the University of Cape Town.