Biography: Competition

Paul Coetser is a director of Werksmans Attorneys and currently heads the firm's competition law practice.

He advises on all aspects of competition law including applications for leniency and for exemption from the Competition Act. He has significant expertise in the competition-related aspects of mergers and takeovers and in dealing with complaints of alleged anti-competitive conduct. He also undertakes compliance audits and programmes.

Consistently rated as one of South Africa's top competition lawyers, Paul has been involved in a number of groundbreaking competition matters over the past few years. He is named as a leading lawyer in the specialities of antitrust, corporate and M&A by Best Lawyers International; in competition/antitrust, and corporate/M&A by Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business; in competition by The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers; and in competition/antitrust by PLC Which Lawyer.

Paul is the founding chairperson of the competition law committee of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces and chairman of the standing committee on competition law of the Law Society of South Africa. He is also admitted to the Virginia State Bar.

He is the author of many published articles and is a regular speaker at local and international conferences.

Paul holds a B Juris from Free State University; LLB and LLM degrees from the University of South Africa; an LLM from Virginia University in the USA; and a Higher Diploma in Tax from the University of the Witwatersrand.