High Court rules in favour of actress Nur Fazura in beauty product lawsuit

KUALA LUMPUR: Actress and singer Nur Fazura Sharifuddin did not breach a contract with a beauty product company when she launched her own beauty product "Trudolly", the High Court ruled.

In his judgment, Justice Mohd Firuz Jaffril said there was no breach of contract between the plaintiff Maydan Trading and Nur Fazura, the first defendant.

“The contract in this case only involved the plaintiff and the second defendant, Universal Music Sdn Bhd.

“The plaintiff’s allegation that there was a breach of contract was inaccurate because the contract was terminated by the plaintiff itself, ” he said here on Thursday (June 18).

Universal Music is the company that manages the 37-year-old actress and singer.

The judge also said that based on a testimony by the plaintiff’s witness, Nur Fazura, who was the appointed ambassador for Maydan’s product called "Q Tab", had done her role to promote the beauty product.

“A testimony from another witness who is a pharmaceutical officer also stated that the plaintiff’s product had broken the law by containing banned substances.

“This meant the plaintiff had marketed an illegal product which caused the contract to be null, ” he added.

The court was of the opinion that when a contract was null and invalid, the damages suffered by the plaintiff were considered an out of pocket expense (belanja hangus).

“Therefore, the plaintiff’s claim is dismissed with costs, ” he said.

Justice Firuz ordered the plaintiff to pay costs of RM40,000 to each of the defendants.

Narhamdan Abd Malek, the owner of Maydan Trading, filed the suit against Nur Fazura and Universal Music on Dec 16,2017.

In his suit, he claimed to have entered a contract with Universal Music on Aug 10,2017, in order that Nur Fazura would market "Q Tab", a hair, skin and nail health product in the form of candy that can be chewed, and which he owned and sold.

According to the terms of the agreement, Nur Fazura was supposed to market the product over a six-month period on social media, specifically the Instagram account of the artiste.

She was also required to be featured in photographs and videos for use by Narhamdan in the marketing of the product.

Narhamdan had claimed that the contract had been breached in late September 2017, when Nur Fazura launched a separate health and beauty product called “TRUDOLLY ‘TruBeauty’ oleh Fazura” and marketed this product while his contract of Aug 10,2017, was still in effect.

He had further claimed this had created competition for the "Q Tab" product and as the marketing of the product had been neglected, causing Narhamdan to suffer a loss in sales.

The plaintiff sought the return of RM156,000 paid in August 2017, as well as damages amounting to RM141,755.61.

Meanwhile, in her defence filed on Jan 29,2018, Nur Fazura stated that she had never entered into a contract with the plaintiff.