Eco-Handbag Brand Sues King's Charity for £6 Million Over Cancelled Fundraiser

Amanda Navaian, the 43-year-old founder of London eco-handbag brand Marici London, has filed a High Court claim seeking £6 million in damages against the King Charles III Charitable Fund, food redistribution charity FareShare, and Dori Dana-Haeri, who chairs the development committee of the Coronation Food Project, after the three parties allegedly withdrew from a planned celebrity fundraising dinner and promotional T-shirt campaign tied to the King's food waste initiative.

Navaian, who is representing herself in court, told the judge that the cancellation gutted her business entirely. "There was no valid reason to give for the dinner being cancelled and soon after that my entire eco-system fell apart," she said. "Everything that meant anything to me was involved in that project. There could have been over one million in sales during that launch week. The result of the cancellation led to me not being able to work for a very long time and caused me loss."

The event, as Navaian described it, was no modest affair. It was set to be attended by celebrities and influencers and curated by Olivia Buckingham, Princess Beatrice's stylist. Beyond the dinner, the collaboration envisioned a promotional T-shirt line in support of the Coronation Food Project, a venture Navaian says represented the commercial and creative centre of her business at the time. The Daily Mail reported that the lawsuit alleges an oral agreement underpinning the entire project was reached during a Zoom meeting in April 2024, and that the King Charles III Charitable Trust Ltd breached that agreement when it withdrew.

The claim filed by Navaian and Marici London Ltd alleges breach of contract and misrepresentation against the King's charity and the other defendants, and adds a further charge of unlawful interference in their economic relations against all three parties. Navaian told the court she lost over £1 million in sales revenue in a single week following the cancellation, and described feeling "locked out and isolated" for the following year after her work team disbanded and her business plan "disintegrated."

The defendants are fighting back hard. Andrew MacLeod, barrister for the defence, told the judge the claims were "bound to fail" and argued that the pleadings themselves were fundamentally deficient. "It's hard to know which claims are being pursued against which parties," MacLeod said, adding that to the extent the claimants were asserting misrepresentation, "they have failed to plead or establish any actionable misrepresentation, any reliance on such a misrepresentation and any loss flowing from such reliance." The defence has applied to have all claims struck out.

In a formal statement, the defendants said: "We have been working hard to understand Ms Navaian's concerns for over a year and it is regrettable that she continues to make these unfounded allegations. We have asked the court to have these claims struck out."

The judge has not yet ruled on the strike-out application. Whether a self-represented handbag designer's £6 million case against a royal charity survives that first legal hurdle will determine how far this particular collaboration's collapse travels through the courts.