Our Advisory Council

DAVID LEWIS

Member, Advisory Council

Mr. David Lewis is the executive director of Corruption Watch, a not-for-profit NGO dedicated to combating corruption. Mr. Lewis received his training in economics from the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Cape Town. Mr. Lewis was a member of the Task Team responsible for drafting the Competition Act in South Africa.

With the promulgation of the Act in 1999 Lewis was appointed Chairperson of the Competition Tribunal, a position which he held until 2009. He was Chairman of the Steering Group of the International Competition Network. Between 1994 and 1996 Lewis was Special Advisor to the Minister of Labour and co-chaired the Presidential Commission on Labour Market Policy. From 1990, Mr. Lewis directed the Development Policy Research Unit, a UCT based research group specialising in trade and industrial policy.

Between 1975 and 1990 he worked in the trade union movement, in what is now the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union. He has served on the boards of the National Research Foundation, the Industrial Development Corporation, the Johannesburg Development Agency and South African Airways. He is the author and editor of several books including the recently published ‘Thieves at the Dinner Table’, an account of the first 10 years of competition law enforcement in South Africa. In 2010 UCT awarded Lewis an honorary doctorate in economic sciences.

PHILIPPE BRUSICK

Member, Advisory Council

Mr. Philippe Brusick is a trade and development economics expert having completed his tenure with United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In his more than 30 years of work at UNCTAD, he has worked extensively in areas of trade, development and competition law and policy. He headed UNCTAD’s Competition and Consumer Policies Branch for some 25 years.

This involved supervising research on specific competition issues, organising international meetings and conferences on the subject, taking part in multilateral negotiations related to competition policy, including at the WTO, and preparing and implementing technical assistance and capacity building programs for developing countries and regional integration schemes in all regions of the world, including Latin America, in cooperation with individual Governments and international Organisations involved in this field, such as the World Bank, OECD and WTO.

Mr. Brusick has 25 years of lecturing experience, at Webster University, then at Geneva University, where he taught economic translation from English and Spanish into French.

Yannis Katsoulacos

Member, Advisory Council

Mr. Yannis Katsoulacos, former Commissioner of Hellenic Competition Commission (Greek Competition Authority), is a Professor of Economics at the Athens University of Economics and Business. He specialises in competition economics and policy, regulation, industrial organisation and economics of technological change. He has published numerous articles and written several books on Competition Policy & Regulation. He had been a Research Fellow of the Centre of Economic Policy Research CEPR, London and a Member of the Greek National Committee of Economic Advisors of the Ministry of Finance.

He has been actively involved in advising the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Greece on revising Competition Law Policy. He has worked in various capacities on several projects including telecom and energy regulation for the Greek National Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications (EETT), for the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE), the Hellenic Competition Commission, among others.

Mr. Katsoulacos has acted as consultant to the World Bank in projects appraising the competition policy and regulatory regime in the Southern Balkan countries. He holds a PhD and MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

KK Sharma

Secretary, Advisory Council

Antitrust Divisions of the Competition Commission of India (CCI). He has to his credit the distinction of drafting the competition law and regulations in India and overseeing their enforcement thereafter. Mr. Sharma has investigated several cases of competition law violations falling under a number of sectors as the first Director General of the functional CCI.

The creation of Merger Review Format for India, drafting of merger regulations and overseeing the first few merger clearances was done under his leadership. He has a comprehensive experience, of nearly three decades, in various Government departments and public bodies, including direct tax administration, the Competition Commission of India as well as the private sector. A regular speaker at national and international Conferences on competition law, he is an active member of International Competition Network (ICN) Merger Working Group.

Mr. Sharma is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, a qualified lawyer and an economics masters. He is trained in competition law economics from King’s College, London.

Hon’ble (Retd.) Justice Mr. Deepak Verma

Hon’ble Justice Mr. Deepak Verma , after getting enrolled as an Advocate in 1972, dealt with constitutional law, family disputes, arbitration, service law and commercial matters before being elevated to the Bench in 1994. He was appointed as the Administrative Judge of High Court of MP in 2005. In 2008, he was transferred as the senior most judge of the Karnataka High Court, Bangalore.

In 2009, he was elevated as Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court before being elevated as Judge, Supreme Court of India on 11.05.2009, where he served till 28.08.2012.

He delivered landmark judgements, during his tenure on the bench, on many varied subjects. He is a member of Indian Council of Arbitration, New Delhi and empanelled Arbitrator of Delhi International Arbitration Centre, Karnataka Arbitration Centre, Bangalore and ICADR, New Delhi. He was also additionally appointed as Welfare Commissioner, Bhopal Gas Victims to disburse the amount of compensation to the Gas Victims of Bhopal.