At long last, it seems like the bubble tea war in Malaysia has reached an end. The Court of Appeal has granted an injunction by La Kaffa to prevent Loob Holding to carry out a similar business as Chatime. Tealive is now apparently… Teadead.
Once Upon A Time…
A while back, La Kaffa, the owner of Chatime, decided to revoke the franchise from Loob Holding. According to La Kaffa, Loob Holding had breached the contract by using unapproved ingredients and owing La Kaffa royalty fees for more than a year! Seems pretty serious. However, Loob Holding denied La Kaffa’s “false and malicious” claims, stating that their ingredients were certified as halal by JAKIM. With so many arguments and disagreements, La Kaffa terminated their contract with Loob Holding. On the other hand, Loob Holding also stated that it was impossible to continue with La Kaffa anyway due to lack of trust and respect.
The Takeover
When that happened, La Kaffa hastened to take over all existing Chatime outlets in Malaysia, but somehow it didn’t work out. Instead, Loob Holding managed to turn the tide, and converted 161 outlets from Chatime to their new brand: Tealive! Tealive achieved great success overall and remain largely popular, but La Kaffa was outraged. Therefore, they filed in injunction against Loob Holding to prevent them from carrying out a similar business in 2017. La Kaffa’s attempt failed, but they did not give up.
The Drama Continues…
In 2018, La Kaffa filed another injunction against Loob Holding again, and they succeeded this time. Loob Holding on the other hand also filed for an application to stay, but it seems like this time, Loob Holding lost out. So it seems like it’s goodbye to Tealive for now, but we’ll see if they manage to make a comeback, or turn it around again!
What are your thoughts on this? Are you sad that Tealive is Teadead, or are you looking forward to see Chatime back again? Or maybe you don’t really mind as long as there’s bubble tea? Let us know!
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