Case Summary

The plaintiffs in Suit No 22–125 of 2008 (‘the first suit’) were in the business of marketing and distributing wooden and leather-based furniture worldwide under the ‘Lifestyle’ brand and were part of the ‘Lifestyle Group’ of companies which included the second defendant (‘Lifestyle Holdings’) in Suit No 23-18-2011 (‘the second suit’). The first defendant in the first suit, LY Furniture Sdn Bhd (‘LY’), of which the second defendant was its founder and executive managing director, designed and manufactured furniture including a particular design collection (‘the collection’) for sale and distribution by the plaintiffs. Under its agency agreement with Lifestyle Holdings, LY could only sell certain models of that collection directly to four named companies in North America but apart from those four companies the sale and distribution of all models in the collection to the North American market could only be made through the first plaintiff in the first suit, Lifestyle