Egypt appoints Mahmoud Momtaz as Chairman of Egyptian Competition Authority

CAIRO – 5 January 2021: Minister of Trade and Industry Nevine Gamea issued decision No. 640 of 2020 appointing  Mahmoud Momtaz as the Chairman of the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA).

Momtaz received his PhD in Competition Law & Economics from the University of Hamburg - Germany. Prior to that he obtained an M.Sc. degree in International Business from the German University in Cairo (GUC) and a professional diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the United Kingdom. Moreover, he holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the GUC as well as a Bachelor of Laws from Cairo University.

Prior to his appointment, Momtaz served as Private Sector Development Specialist at the World Bank’s headquarters in Washington D.C since August 2018. During that period, he worked on several competition policy projects as well as private sector development in the MENA region and Southeast Asia.

He formerly served at ECA from 2008 until 2018 where his last post was the Director of the Competition Policy Department in addition to heading the Case Handling Department. In this position he led numerous important cases covering a wide range of sectors. Moreover, he participated in drafting many recommendations to amend laws and Government decisions that hindered competition and market contestability.

 Momtaz further engaged in competition advocacy and awareness generation through participating in several training programs and workshops for companies, public officials and judges in order to ingrain the competition culture in Egypt. He participated in training programs for judges of the administrative and economic courts. Furthermore, he delivered many lectures to Government procurement officials at the Training Center of the General Authority of Government Services on methods of detecting bid rigging in public tenders. He created ECA’s simulation model (CAS) for university students.

During this period, Momtaz received extensive trainings in several leading competition agencies around the world such as the German Competition Authority, the UK Office of Fair Trading, Netherlands Competition Authority, and U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice which involved investigation procedures and techniques, streamlining internal workflow and structure of competition agencies.

On the regional and international level, Momtaz has actively participated in the reformulation of the competition laws and enforcement regimes in a number of Middle Eastern countries and conducted several trainings to numerous stakeholders therein.

On the academic front, Momtaz taught Competition Law & Economics at both Hamburg University - Germany and Cairo University, Egypt.

As for publications, Momtaz has many academic articles that have been published in internationally renowned peer reviewed journals and reviews in the field of competition law including, World Competition Law & Economics Review, Global Competition Litigation Review, European Competition Law Review, the Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, and the Europe, Middle East and Africa Antitrust Review.