FashionValet Founder Vivy Yusof And Husband To Be Charged Tomorrow

The couple is being charged in connection with the loss of investment funds amounting up to RM43.9mil.

Vivy Yusof, the founder of online fashion retail brand FashionValet, and her husband Datuk Fadzaruddin Shah Anuar will be charged in court on Thursday (5 December).

The couple is being charged in connection with the loss of investment funds of Khazanah Nasional Berhad (Khazanah) and Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) in FashionValet, amounting up to RM43.9 million.

This was confirmed by the Chief Commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Tan Sri Azam Baki, according to a Bernama report yesterday (3 December).

He said the MACC arrested the couple yesterday afternoon, but both were given bail to appear in court tomorrow.

Astro Awani reported that the couple will be charged under the offense of breach of trust.

Why are they being charged for the loss?

On 28 October, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said in a written parliamentary reply that two government-linked firms – Khazanah and PNB – had sold their minority investments in FashionValet at the end of 2023 for RM3.1 million.

The sale marked a significant loss from the initial RM47 million investments in 2018, prompting calls for investigations as it involves public money.

On 7 November, the MACC confirmed it found several suspicious transactions made to a company linked to the founding partner of FashionValet from 2018 until last year, though it didn’t say who.

Azam told local media at the time, that they believe some investments have been misused in the matter, and they were trying to identify it.

According to a report by Malay Mail on 5 August, 2022, there have been allegations that FashionValet heavily promoted its two in-house brands – dUCK and Lilit – at the expense of other local vendors that used its platform to sell their products, even as the firm marketed itself as a business model around promoting local entrepreneurs.

It was also reported that announcements of FashionValet’s closure of its e-commerce platform in 2022 had raised eyebrows on how a business that was recording multi-million dollar losses could convince two of the country’s largest state investment funds to inject money into it.

MOF reveals three factors that were the cause of FashionValet’s losses

Earlier, Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan, when answering a question from Bukit Bendera Member of Parliament Syarleen Abdul Rashid, outlined three factors that were the cause of FashionValet’s losses.

The causes were: Effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, changing trends of e-commerce platforms, and challenges in terms of fundraising.

This controversy also caught the attention of Deputy Speaker Yang Di-Pertua Dewan Rakyat Datuk Ramli Mohd Nor, when he questioned whether the investment received by FashionValet from Khazanah was approved by the MOF.

Ramli explained that he who used to work as an investigator described the loss of public funds worth more than RM40 million was absurd.

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