Rob Flaws joins Baker Botts in Dubai as special counsel
19 May 2022
Flaws joins after serving in-house with African telecoms company MTN.
Rob Flaws, a technology, digital, intellectual property and data protection law specialist with over 14 years of international experience, has joined Baker Botts in Dubai as special counsel. He supports clients across the full spectrum of technology, media, IP and telecoms matters and has a wealth of recent industry experience having worked in-house with African telecoms company MTN, media giant Viacom and on secondment with Emirates Airlines and regional telecoms company DU.
A recognized practitioner in the FinTech and data protection space within MENA, he has also led on first-of-their-kind projects in areas such as AI, esports and Blockchain, working with both well-established international clients and start-ups.
Flaws has worked with a range of government entities and regulators and assisted clients’ responses to consultation papers on the development of new legislation in the data protection, cybersecurity and fintech/ecommerce space within MENA.
At MTN, Flaws worked on the bid to become the first foreign licensed operator in Ethiopia and led on projects to procure key digital and cloud services from SAP, IBM, Oracle and Accenture as part of his management of a portfolio of IT, Network and Procurement contracts worth over US$1.7 billion per year.
He was the lead counsel in charge of safeguarding MTN’s IP portfolio and acted as their regional data protection officer, coordinating the regulatory management and training and development programs across the data protection and cybersecurity functions in line with new and forthcoming legislation. He also worked closely with their independent fintech business on a range of corporate advisory and technology related matters.
