A lawyer working for The 1975 told the High Court in London this week that individual band members should be removed as defendants on the lawsuit filed by the Malaysian festival where frontman Matty Healy caused controversy in 2023.
The promoter of the Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Future Sound Asia, has filed a lawsuit against both The 1975’s company and each band member after Healy’s controversial on-stage comments caused the Malaysian authorities to cut short the event’s 2023 edition.
However, says the band’s lawyer Edmund Cullen, the promoter only had a contract with the band’s company so the claims against individual members are not valid.
According to the Press Association, the lawyer said in court yesterday that the promoter’s case against Healy and his bandmates directly was an “illegitimate, artificial and incoherent” attempt “to pin liability on individuals” by claiming they owed a personal “duty of care” to the festival, in addition to their company’s contractual obligations. But that’s a “really quite bizarre” claim.
Healy spoke out about Malaysia’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws during his band’s performance at the festival in 2023, after which he kissed bandmate Ross MacDonald on the mouth.
That broke strict rules governing their performance and resulted in the local authorities not only stopping the band’s own set, but also withdrawing the entire event’s licence, which meant the rest of the festival had to be cancelled. Which is why the festival’s promoter is now suing the band through the UK courts.
While the band’s company may or may not have entered into an agreement that the band would adhere to the rules governing their performance, individual band members did not owe any duty of care, Cullen insisted
“The allegations of breaches of a duty of care are not breaches of a duty of care at all”, he told the court. “They are breaches of Malaysian statutes and guidelines. That is why this claim is completely artificial against my clients”.
To that end, the lawyer argued, Healy and co should be removed as defendants so that the case only proceeds against their company.
In a written statement, Andrew Burns, representing Future Sounds Asia, defended his client’s bid to hold Healy and his bandmates personally liable for the cancellation of the Good Vibes Festival in 2023.
The band’s members, he said, not only performed a “second-rate set of songs” to “punish and upset the Malaysian audience and authorities”, but also “deliberately behaved in a way to challenge and provoke the Malaysian authorities”.
In doing so, he said, it could be argued that the band’s members were “on a frolic of their own” rather than “simply acting within the course” of their roles as partners in the band’s company.
Which means, he concluded, “it is therefore fair, just and reasonable for the duty of care to be imposed and for them to answer for their acts of procuring breaches of contract”.
