Amanda is an experienced competition lawyer who has been focused on competition law since 2014 when he took up employment with the South African Competition Commission. During his time at the Competition Commission, Amanda worked on some of the most high-profile and complex transactions, including precedent-setting matters contested before the Competition Tribunal. Amanda is strong in providing regulatory advice on mergers and clients have benefited from his wealth of knowledge of the South African merger regulatory environment and inner workings of the South African competition authorities.

Amanda provides advice on the competition law implications of activities including merger notifications and negotiation conditions with the competition authorities, behavioural matters, competition compliance audits, competition due diligence and competition training. Amanda is a specialist in South African competition law, and has also advised in respect of merger notifications in Botswana and COMESA.

Amanda is able to express and explain often complex concepts clearly and in a manner that is easy to understand for clients. He has also shown the ability to assist the competition authorities in understanding and evaluating often relatively sophisticated and complex products and services offered by clients in order to assess the competitive effects of the transaction as efficiently as possible. Amanda has the ability to keep the focus on client’s commercial imperatives when negotiating conditions with the Commission in complex transactions for purposes of getting merger clearance.

Amanda is not just a lawyer’s lawyer, he has good stakeholder management skills and clients and competition authorities find him cordial and pleasant to work with. In recognition of Amanda’s experience in competition law and stakeholder management capabilities, he was nominated as a Non-Governmental Advisor (NGA) representative for the 2023/25 financial year by the South African Competition Commission to contribute alongside the Commission on working group’s work products of leading competition international bodies such as the International Competition Network, OECD Competition Working Parties Meetings and BRICS Annual Competition Conference.

Education

• LLB (Bachelor of Laws),University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.
• LLM (Master of Laws), University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2009.
• LLM (Master of Laws), University of Notre Dame, U.S.A, 2014.
• Post-Graduate Certificate in Banking and Financial Markets, University of the Witwatersrand, 2016.

Professional Memberships

• Attorney of the High Court of South Africa.

Relevant Experience

Jurisdictions worked in: Botswana, COMESA and South Africa

Recently, Amanda has advised:

• OpenText Corporation in securing competition approval from the South African Competition Commission in respect of its acquisition of British software and information technology company, Micro Focus International Plc.
• Discovery Inc. in securing competition approval from the South African Competition Commission in respect of its acquisition of the business, operations, assets and liabilities constituting the WarnerMedia segment of AT&T Inc.
• Citrico Global SL in securing competition approval from the South African Competition Commission in respect of its acquisition of San Miguel Fruits South Africa (Pty) Ltd.
• Alchemy Promotions Holdings Limited (Oppenheimer Partners) in securing competition approval from the South African Competition Commission in respect of its acquisition of Amrod Investments (Pty) Ltd.
• IDEAS Infrastructure I GP (Pty) Ltd in securing competition approval from the South African competition authorities in respect of its acquisition of SolarAfrica Energy (Pty) Ltd.
• Takatso Consortium in securing competition approval from the South African competition authorities in respect of its proposed acquisition of South African Airways SOC Limited.
• Barloworld Limited in respect of the disposal of Barloworld Transport (Pty) Ltd and the separate sale of its Aspen Logistics business and securing competition approval from the Botswana competition authority.
• African Rainbow Mineral Limited in securing competition approval from the South African competition authorities in its ’s acquisition of Bokoni Mine Limited.
• Royal Bafokeng Platinum Limited (RBPlat) in respect of Impala Platinum Holding Limited’s acquisition of control over RBPlat in securing competition approval from the South African competition authorities.
• Advising in respect of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa Limited’s acquisition of the soft drinks business of Castel Malawi Limited and securing competition approval from COMESA Competition Commission.
• Dis-Chem Limited in respect of an abuse of dominance complaint against Dis-Chem for alleged price gouging in respect of Covid-19 PCR tests.
• Hill’s Pet Nutrition in respect of an abuse of dominance complaint relating to the pet nutrition segment in South Africa.

• Chambers and Partners: Merger Control 2023 Guide – South African chapter
• Chambers and Partners: Merger Control 2022 Guide: South African Chapter