Samar Masood is a Partner at ABS & Co and heads the firm’s Corporate, Technology and Intellectual Property practices. Recognised as one of Pakistan’s leading corporate and technology lawyers, she is ranked by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific as a “Next Generation Partner” in Corporate and M&A and as a Recommended Lawyer for Technology, Media and Telecommunications. She is also ranked by Chambers and Partners for Intellectual Property, where clients commend her strategic clarity, structured analysis and ability to advise global technology platforms on complex cross-border matters. These recognitions reflect her leadership in high-value M&A, technology regulation and the wider digital economy.

Samar has more than a decade of experience advising domestic and international clients on mergers and acquisitions, corporate structuring, shareholder governance, joint ventures and complex commercial transactions. She regularly advises on significant local and cross-border mandates involving Daewoo Group, Dawood Group, Siemens, TMC, US Group, Jazz, Orient Group and other major conglomerates. Her practice encompasses complex shareholder arrangements, exit structures, corporate restructurings and offshore holding arrangements across multiple jurisdictions. Her broader corporate advisory work also covers competition, taxation, employment and corporate governance.

Drawing on her extensive transactional and corporate-governance experience, Samar also plays a leading role in the firm’s most complex shareholder and corporate disputes. Her involvement extends well beyond the conduct of litigation as she advises on the underlying corporate rights, governance arrangements and commercial dynamics of such disputes, including questions of board and management control, minority protection, oppression and mismanagement, shareholder exits, general meetings, statutory audits, share issuances and negotiated settlements. This combination of transactional insight and disputes experience enables her to formulate commercially workable strategies that address both the immediate proceedings and the client’s wider corporate objectives.

She is deeply embedded in Pakistan’s technology and fintech ecosystem and is a trusted adviser to major global and regional platforms, including Alibaba, AliExpress, Google and its APAC teams, Nintendo, GLOCK and Yango. Her work includes advising on platform regulation, digital payments, buy-now-pay-later frameworks, alternative credit scoring, e-commerce compliance, data protection, cybersecurity, content regulation and AI-enabled products. She frequently engages with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, State Bank of Pakistan, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, Electronic Certification Accreditation Council and other regulators on fintech frameworks, digital-economy policy, licensing regimes, cross-border payment structures and regulatory reform.

Her intellectual property practice covers trademarks, copyright, brand protection, digital content and technology transfer. She played a key role in advising the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan on the protection of Basmati as a geographical indication before the European Commission. She also advised the Electronic Certification Accreditation Council on reforms under the Electronic Transactions Ordinance, 2002, and drafted regulations relating to cryptographic services, the accreditation of certification service providers, public key infrastructure and cybersecurity standards.

Samar advises clients across the technology, fintech, power, construction, logistics, manufacturing, e-commerce and financial-services sectors.

In addition to her legal practice, Samar has taught Intellectual Property Law and Technology and the Law at the Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law at LUMS. She has also contributed to national policy initiatives, including a study commissioned by Ignite – National Technology Fund, under the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, concerning Pakistan’s startup and freelancing ecosystem.

Samar holds an LLM from the University of Chicago and read law at SOAS, University of London. Before joining ABS & Co, she worked at Chima & Ibrahim, where she was part of the team advising on the landmark Warid–Mobilink merger.

Outside legal practice, Samar enjoys planning, organising and bringing structure to everything around her.