Senior Associate
Languages spoken
English | Urdu | Hindi | Punjabi
Habib Saeed is a UK-qualified senior associate based in the firm’s Dubai office, with more than eight years’ post-qualification experience and over six years practising in the Middle East. He specialises in employment, data protection, cybersecurity and AI governance, advising multinational and regional clients across the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Habib has developed a distinctive practice at the intersection of workforce matters and technology regulation. He advises on complex employment issues including restructurings, senior executive exits, investigations, contentious matters, workforce transitions and the employment aspects of corporate transactions. He regularly manages litigation strategy before the UAE Federal Labour Courts and the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) tribunals, working closely with local counsel where required.
Alongside his employment work, Habib leads on workplace-facing data protection and cyber matters in the Middle East. He advises on regional compliance under UAE and Saudi data protection laws, cross-border data transfers, HR technology governance, AI-enabled workforce management, internal investigations involving employee data and high-profile breach response mandates. His practice frequently involves coordinating multijurisdictional regulatory strategy and working at board and senior management level.
Habib is individually recognised by Chambers & Partners as an “Associate to Watch” and by Legal 500 as a “Leading Associate” for Labour & Employment in the UAE. Market sources describe him as “fantastic, responsive, thorough and helpful”, “a safe pair of hands” and “smart, practical and responsible.”
He is a regular speaker at regional conferences on employment, data protection and AI regulation, and frequently delivers training to senior leadership and HR teams on evolving regulatory developments in the Gulf.
Advising multinational aerospace and defence companies on employment strategy and regulatory risk across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
Advising a global payment processor and financial services provider on managing staff exits in the UAE by way of settlement agreement and redundancy.
Regularly advising on queries in relation to organisational restructuring, disciplinary, grievances and investigations.
Defending labour law matters for numerous clients in the UAE, both onshore and in the region’s free zones, including those involving unlawful termination, unpaid benefits and breaches of contract.
Supporting major multinationals on workplace investigations, restructurings and senior exits involving multijurisdictional considerations.
Advising on data sharing and localised processing agreements for intragroup transfers from the UAE to the EU.
Advising on the local response to vaccination protocols in the UAE for a company’s respective workforce, both from a labour law and data privacy perspective, and reviewing and redrafting a bespoke employee privacy notice to ensure compliance with the current data protection laws in the DIFC.
Advising a leading identity fraud, authorisation and authentication company on general data protection compliance in the Middle East. Habib continues to advise the company on data processing arrangements/data sharing with third-party vendors.
Leading high-value data breach response and compliance programmes for pharmaceutical and healthcare clients across the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Advising global technology and data-driven organisations on regional data localisation, cross-border transfer structures and artificial intelligence (AI) governance frameworks.
Delivering regional employment and data compliance training to senior HR and compliance teams.
Author, “Future supply market arrangements call for evidence response – Reforming the ‘Supplier Hub’ model”, LexisPSL, 25 September 2018.
Co-author, “Changing Terms of Employment (UAE)”, Practical Law, July 2023 (subscription required).
Author, “DIFC - Data Transfers Guidance”, OneTrust Data Guidance, December 2025 (subscription required)
Co-author, “Holiday and Holiday Pay (UAE)”, Practical Law, February 2026 (subscription required).