The Sun – Wednesday, 21 November 2012
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
| 2004: | Trinity Towers Sdn Bhd was established as a property developer. |
| 2009/10: | Trinity Towers changed its name to Trinity Group Sdn Bhd and its logo following a rebranding exercise. |
| Aug 18, 2011: | Trinity Group discovered that Talam Corp has decided to rebrand its company and official Trinity Corp Bhd as its new name. |
| Aug 19, 2011: | Talam Corp begins trading under the new name Trinity Corp. Trinity Group finds itself associated with Trinity Corp and its subsidiary companies, causing confusion among media, real estate agents, stakeholders, business associates and the public at large. |
| September 2011: | Trinity Group founder and managing director Dato’ Neoh Soo Keat tried to settle amicably with Trinity Corp’s non-independent non-executive Tan Sri Chan Ah Chye but failed. |
| October 2011: | After seeking legal advice, Trinity Group filed a legal suit against Trinity Corp on the grounds of passing-off for confusion caused to the general public. |
| May 2012: | Three-day trial from May 15 till 17. |
| Sept 26, 2012: | KL High Court delivered verbal judgment in favour of Trinity Group. Trinity Corp files appeal against the court’s decision. Appeal is pending a decision and date has not been set for a hearing. |
Trinity Group Sdn Bhd, a boutique property developer based in Puchong, Selangor, has won the right to use the name after a court battle with Trinity Corp Bhd, which had changed its name from Talam Corp Bhd last August.
Trinity Group founder and managing director Dato’ Neoh Soo Keat said the Kuala Lumpur High Court delivered a verbal judgment favouring Trinity Group on Sept 26, after a three-day trial from May 15 till 17.
With this decision, Trinity Corp will no longer be allowed to use “Trinity” name.
However, Neoh said Trinity Corp has filed an appeal against the court judgment, which is pending a decision.
Asked why the company waited almost two months to announce the court’s decision, Neoh said Trinity Group had initially hoped to make the announcement after receiving the written judgment, but then decided to clear the confusion over the name so that it can proceed with its upcoming launches and ongoing projects.
In October last year, Trinity Group has sued Trinity Corp over its use of the Trinity, claiming the latter’s use of it caused confusion to the general public.
“The recent Talam debt recovery exercise had caused a lot of confusion among our customers, business partners and the general public,” Neoh told a press briefing here yesterday.
“We received a lot of enquiries urging us to clarify the issue, as many had mistakenly took our company to be Talam Corp,” he said, adding that the confusion has greatly affected its business.
“(Thus), we are grateful and believe that fair judgment has been delivered… Talam Corp has been injuncted by the High Court not to use the name Trinity in respect of property development in Malaysia.
“With this judgment, we hope that our business partners, customers, potential customers and other members of the public will no longer be confused,” he added.
Trinity Group is in the midst of gathering data to quantify the losses incurred due to the confusion caused by Trinity Corp. It is understood that Trinity Corp would have to pay damages after the data is assessed by the court.
Neoh said before seeking legal advice, he had approached Trinity Corp’s director Tan Sri Chan Ah Chye to settle the case out of court, but the two parties could not reach an amicable settlement.
According to Neoh, in the affidavit Trinity Corp executive director Chua Kim Lan had stated that Talam Corp had decided to change its name to Trinity Corp to reflect a more “holy” image, following Chan’s and several other directors’ conversion to Christianity. “However, we (Trinity Group) are already established and are in the same trade (property development) and location (Puchong and Bukit Jalil areas),” said Neoh.
Moving forward, Trinity Group plans to roll out RM1.86 billion worth of launches over the next four years.
The projects are located in USJ 19 (Subang Jaya), Melawati, Serdang, Ukay MRR2 (Ampang) and Permas Jaya (Johor).
The total landbank for these projects is 28.5 acres. Some of its key past projects include The Heron serviced apartments, 19 Residency zero-lot bungalows, Zest serviced apartments, Z Residence and Zeva Equine South.
For its financial year ended March 31, 2012, Trinity Group posted revenue of RM480 million. Its target for FY13 is RM350 million.
