Open an international offshoot of a hit nightclub, and some teething troubles are to be expected, as the founders of London’s glamorous Chinawhite have discovered. The club, which founders Rory Keegan and John Stephen last week announced will open at the Grand Hyatt hotel in April, hit a stumbling block when the general manager of the London spot denied a Chinawhite was opening in Dubai and said that he was “taking steps”.
“Chinawhite London club is not involved or affiliated with the club reported to be opening in Dubai,” James Spallone told a hotel trade publication. But a lawyer for Keegan and Stephen said Spallone’s comment about the owners taking “steps against the concerned individuals” was overstating the case.
“To date those steps constitute a letter which the legal advisers in Dubai have discredited as showing no discernible cause of action and being without any merit in fact or law,” Jeremy Miocevic, a partner at the Dubai office of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost told Gulf News.
Keegan and Stephen, who no longer work with the London club, say they still own the rights to the name, and have licensed it to local partners Kalys Management Consultancy.
“This project has been developed and carried out with the full involvement and consent of the original founders of Chinawhite who to this day remain the owners of the intellectual property and the trade mark in the name Chinawhite,” Miocevic added.
It’s a similar issue to last year’s Cafe Del Mar launch, which saw bickering co-founders disputing over who can use the name to launch another club. That club shuttered after less than a year.
Keegan says the Dubai opening is a “rebirth” of the club’s concept.
“I’m really excited to launch Chinawhite in Dubai — it will be everything that the original brand was and more,” said Keegan in a statement. “We aim to go higher with the new club here and take it to the next level, bringing a modern touch and further glamour and glitz to the region.”
