Genting Malaysia settles theme park battles with Fox and Disney

A rendering of the theme park

Genting Malaysia, Twentieth Century Fox Group of companies and The Walt Disney Company have reached a settlement regarding a dispute over a Fox-branded theme park in Genting Highlands.

Under the settlement agreement, Genting Malaysia has been granted a license to use certain Fox intellectual properties. The company is currently updating its development and construction plans to complete the outdoor theme park utilising both Fox and non-Fox intellectual properties. The outdoor theme park will also be renamed.

This is part of the restated memorandum of agreement, Genting Malaysia said in a Bursa Malaysia filing last Thursday.

“The settlement will serve as a big boost to investors’ confidence on future earnings, which would otherwise be clouded by the litigation. In our opinion, the long-term positive implication is much more important than the US$1billion counterclaim against the defendants,” said the group.

The Malaysian casino operator took action against both Disney and Fox in November last year, alleging that the Hollywood pair failed to honour a 2013 deal to license intellectual property for the park outside Kuala Lumpur.

The planned reopening of the outdoor theme park is music to the ears of inbound players, as the repeated delays and uncertainty surrounding the Fox-branded theme park have affected promotion plans of Genting Highlands in overseas markets.

Uzaidi Udanis, Malaysian Inbound Tourism Association president, said: “It will be easier for our overseas counterparts to convince their clients who have been to Malaysia before to revisit the country. Getting repeat visitors to revisit the country and see new destinations and experience new products is a less expensive process as compared with finding new tourists, which involves more advertising and marketing. The theme park will also attract more business event visitors as Genting also has big convention facilities.”

Arokia Das, director, Luxury Tours Malaysia commented: We had earlier forecasted a minimum 30 per cent increase from Asian markets because of the planned opening of Twentieth Century Fox World Theme Park. Now we project the same with the opening of the new theme park, even though it will not be a full Fox theme park.”

-TTG Asia.
https://www.rwgenting.com/