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Esquare Legal

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Esquare Legal

Qualified in multiple jurisdictions we guide and advise you on your legal matters across the globe.

24/07/2026

Confirmed: Esquare Legal Managing Partner Safi Ghauri will speak at the Horasis Global Meeting in November 2026.

The session — "MENA-Brazil Capital Corridor: Digital Assets in the New Geopolitical Economy" — covers the same corridor our São Paulo and Dubai practices work in daily: Gulf sovereign and family office capital moving into Brazilian real-world assets, and the legal and regulatory infrastructure that connects them.

Attending Horasis this November and working in this corridor? We'd like to meet. Contact [email protected].

23/07/2026

A crypto law firm building Brazil's healthtech infrastructure. Yes, really.

It sounds like a non-sequitur from a firm known for VARA and PVARA work — here's the actual logic. Brazil's health system is the largest in Latin America, sitting at the intersection of SUS (the public system), the ANS-regulated private insurance market, and a fast-developing digital health layer — telemedicine, AI diagnostics, electronic health records — that doesn't yet have a settled legal framework.

That's exactly the environment Esquare Legal's practice is built for. We don't practice health law — we practice the law of new regulatory frameworks being built in real time, in emerging markets, for technology-driven business models.

Hassan Farouk, our Brazil Healthtech Lead, identified a specific gap: companies building digital health and MedTech platforms in Brazil have no specialist legal coverage for the regulatory intersection of LGPD (data), Anvisa (device/software classification), CFM (clinical practice boundaries), and the AI governance frameworks now being drafted.

Building a digital health or MedTech platform in Brazil, or bringing AI health infrastructure into the market? Contact [email protected].

22/07/2026

Legal infrastructure for Web3 companies — without the full-time overhead.

Esquare Legal's Fractional General Counsel service is built for one specific moment: when a Web3 company is growing faster than its legal risk tolerance.

Entity & Governance Review — corporate structure, cap table, and governance documents reviewed against your operating model and growth plans.
Regulatory Mapping — cross-jurisdictional assessment across VARA (UAE), PVARA (Pakistan), BCB (Brazil), MiCA (EU), and applicable Gulf securities frameworks.
Commercial Contract Management — review, negotiation, and drafting, with a maintained contract register flagging renewal and amendment obligations.
Ongoing Regulatory Monitoring — monthly briefings on developments across your relevant jurisdictions, with specific action items.
Board & Investor Interface — we attend board calls, participate in investor due diligence, and provide the in-house legal presence investors expect at Series A and beyond.

Monthly retainer, scaled to company stage and jurisdictional complexity. Contact [email protected].

21/07/2026

China to Brazil — a cross-border tokenization deal, closed.

Esquare Legal recently advised on a cross-border real-world asset tokenization structure connecting a Brazilian corporate to Chinese capital, with UAE/VARA-aligned issuance and China-side coordination through our relationship with Tahota Law Firm.

The structure reflects a pattern we're seeing more often: real-world asset tokenization as the mechanism connecting capital and assets across jurisdictions that don't otherwise have an efficient bridge. China-side capital, Brazilian-side assets, UAE-side issuance infrastructure — three legal systems, one structure.

This is the kind of multi-jurisdictional mandate our São Paulo, Dubai, Islamabad, and China-relationship coverage is built for.

Structuring a cross-border tokenization deal that touches any of these markets? Contact [email protected].

20/07/2026

The GENIUS Act is now law. Here's what non-US stablecoin issuers need to do.

Most coverage so far is written for US issuers. This is for everyone else. If you're a stablecoin issuer or payment platform operating in the UAE, Brazil, or Pakistan, three things to understand about its extraterritorial reach:

1. The dollar peg triggers US nexus analysis. If your stablecoin is USD-pegged — and most are — the GENIUS Act's provisions on reserve composition, redemption rights, and issuer obligations don't become irrelevant because you're incorporated offshore.

2. Banking partnerships are the leverage point. Most non-US issuers rely on US correspondent banks, directly or through custodians. GENIUS Act compliance will flow through those relationships as a condition of continued access.

3. VARA, BCB, and PVARA will all respond. Getting ahead of their inevitable guidance updates is the commercial advantage, not reacting to it after the fact.

Does your current structure, reserve arrangement, and issuer legal entity need re-examining? For most non-US issuers, the answer is yes. Contact [email protected].

17/07/2026

Crypto disputes are going to arbitration. Most contracts aren't ready for it.

Across the token issuance and exchange agreements Esquare Legal reviews, the dispute resolution clause is consistently the weakest part of the document — no seat specified, no institutional rules nominated, governing law left ambiguous.

That gap matters more in crypto than in most commercial contracts. Cross-border counterparties, pseudonymous structures, and fast-moving asset values make an unclear dispute mechanism expensive to fix after the fact.

DIAC, DIFC-LCIA, ICC, and SIAC are the four institutions we see most often nominated in Gulf- and Asia-facing crypto contracts — each with different defaults on interim relief, confidentiality, and enforcement.

Structuring a token issuance, exchange agreement, or DeFi protocol arrangement? Your dispute resolution clause deserves the same attention as your commercial terms. Contact [email protected].

16/07/2026

You've got your PVARA licence. Now what?

Getting licensed is step one — operating compliantly under PVARA is where most firms underestimate the ongoing workload. Esquare Legal's Ayaan Shehryar, Associate, breaks down what licensed VASPs are actually on the hook for:

AML/CFT — active maintenance, not a one-time setup: transaction monitoring calibration, STR/SAR filing protocols, annual internal audit.
Rulebook alignment — PVARA will issue updated rules as the regime matures; licensed VASPs are responsible for tracking and implementing every change.
SBP FX — for PKR-denominated transactions, the State Bank's foreign exchange framework applies in parallel.
Incident reporting — timely reporting of material incidents, security breaches, and significant changes to business model or beneficial ownership.

The regulatory obligation doesn't end at licensing. Contact [email protected].

15/07/2026

MENA meets Brazil — the capital corridor nobody has mapped yet.

Gulf sovereign capital is looking at Brazil. Not speculatively — operationally. Sovereign wealth, family office capital, and institutional investors across the UAE and Saudi Arabia are running short on attractive risk-adjusted yield in traditional markets. Brazil's commodity base — iron ore, soy, the agri-supply chain — is exactly the kind of real-asset backing Gulf capital wants at this point in the cycle, and tokenization now creates an access layer that didn't exist two years ago.

From the Brazil side, the appetite for Gulf LP investment is real, but the deal-making infrastructure isn't there yet. Brazilian founders aren't in the room at Horasis or the Abu Dhabi Investment Forum, and most don't have a legal or regulatory map for bringing Gulf capital into a Brazilian structure.

The gap is legal and BD infrastructure — not interest. Esquare Legal runs active practices in both markets, from São Paulo and Dubai.

Managing Partner Safi Ghauri is speaking on the MENA-Brazil Capital Corridor at the Horasis Global Meeting this November. Contact [email protected].

14/07/2026

Esquare Legal formally launches our Shariah-Compliant Crypto Advisory — now with scholar co-signature.

Two products:
Shariah Structuring Report — analysis of your token or DeFi protocol against riba, gharar, maysir, haram assets, and ownership clarity. Written by Esquare Legal, reviewed by our Shariah advisory board.
Scholar Co-Signed Opinion Letter — a formal Shariah opinion co-signed by a qualified Islamic finance scholar, built for investor disclosure, prospectuses, and Gulf and Southeast Asian markets.

Led by Zakwan Siddiqui, our Shariah Advisory Lead — because most "halal crypto" claims in the market today are marketing copy, not scholarship.

Launching a halal crypto product and need something that will hold up to scrutiny? Contact [email protected].

13/07/2026

PVARA is live — and Esquare Legal's Pakistan desk is already seeing the same three structuring errors across the first wave of applicants.

1. SBP interaction is being underestimated. PVARA doesn't sit in isolation — the State Bank's foreign exchange regulations intersect with almost every VASP's operating model.

2. The fit-and-proper test is being treated as a checkbox. Beneficial ownership vetting goes considerably deeper than most applicants expect.

3. The SECP layer is being ignored. If a token model resembles a security, SECP's jurisdiction overlaps directly with PVARA's scope.

Pakistan has an estimated 40 million crypto users and, as far as our team can tell, zero other English-language PVARA specialists currently serving the market.

Structuring a PVARA application? Talk to us before you file. Contact [email protected].

Address

House No. 9-A, Street No. 19, F-8/2
Islamabad
44000

Opening Hours

Monday	08:00 - 21:00
Tuesday	08:00 - 21:00
Wednesday	08:00 - 21:00
Thursday	08:00 - 21:00
Friday	08:00 - 21:00

Telephone

+923455847014

Website

http://www.esquarelegal.com/

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