LONDON – Topshop has been ordered to pay Rihanna’s “startling” £1.5 million ($4.5m) legal bill in a further blow to the fashion chain after she won a ban on using her picture on its T-shirts.
The 26-year-old singer sued Topshop’s parent company Arcadia for £3.3 million after the sleeveless “tank-top”, which featured a photo taken during a video shoot, appeared in stores in 2011.
The seven time Grammy Award winner was awarded the payout following a two-year legal battle last month and yesterday at the Appeal Court successfully defeated a bid to pay her own estimated £919 000 legal costs from the trial.
Lawyers for Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia group argued that there was “no proper basis” for forcing them to pay up the bill along with their own costs.
Last month they lost their appeal and were faced with an increased legal bill from the pop star, estimated at £1.5 million – as well as their own estimated £500 000 bill.
Ruled the order
But, today, appeal judges Lord Justice Richards, Lord Justice Kitchin and Lord Justice Underhill ruled the costs order was “reasonable” and dismissed the challenge.
The legal battle was over a T-shirt featuring a photo taken during a video shoot for Rihanna’s hit We Found Love in 2011.
Her legal team successfully argued her fans, who saw her as a fashion icon, would have falsely thought she had endorsed the garment sold by the high-street fashion store.
In July 2013, High Court judge Justice Birss found the store guilty of unlawfully passing off her image, and ordered them to pay her legal costs, even though he found the size of her bill “startling” and “somewhat surprising”.
But Arcadia, whose own legal costs for the trial amounted to just £350 000, had asked the three appeal judges at a hearing last year to overturn the orders.
Their counsel, Geoffrey Hobbs QC, said the judge had erred in law. But Lord Justice Kitchin said today that after careful consideration “we are unable to accept that the judge fell into error.”
He added: “It follows that the appeal on costs must be dismissed.”
The Bajan star, who was described as a “style icon” by the trial judge, had claimed an estimated £3.5 million in damages for the wrongful use of her photograph, described as “unflattering”.
However an inquiry as to damages and profits made by Topshop have yet to be heard.
She also sought the return of any unsold T-shirts, but the court heard all 12 000 which started at £22 but reduced to £5 each, had been sold, and only five were left and kept for the legal action.
They were hung on clothes rails in court as Hobbs told the judges the T-shirts were like a canvas carrying words and images.
Lord Justice Kitchin said last month that Rihanna had an enormous reputation and goodwill and people might have bought the T-shirt thinking she had an association with it.
He said if Roger Federer’s picture was on a tennis racket or Rory McIlroy’s photo on a golf club people would think they endorsed it.
In his judgement, unanimously backed by the other two judges, he dismissed Topshop’s appeal.
He said there could be a “false belief” by customers that the “world famous pop star” had endorsed the T-shirt’’s bearing her image.
The court found that “a substantial number of purchasers are likely to be deceived into buying the T-shirt because of false belief that it has been authorised by Rihanna herself.”
Because of her current tie up with high street rivals River Island it was found that the Topshop T-shirt would be damaging to the style icon’s goodwill and a loss to her merchandising business.
“It also represents a loss of control over her reputation in the fashion sphere,” ruled Justice Birss.
The recipient of the 2014 Fashion Icon Award, who lives in America sued the Arcadia Group in her full name of Robyn Rihanna Fenty and did no appear in court.
The judge said the multimillionaire had sold over 30 million albums and 120 million singles, and won over 200 awards including five prestigious Grammy awards.
The appeal Judges agreed that it was “right and fair” to grant her a permanent injunction after being told that Topshop had failed
to promise not to use her image on T-shirts in the future. (Daily Mail.)
