After a four-year legal battle that led to the closure of her makeup brand, beauty influencer Tati Westbrook said the lawsuit has now been settled.
“The past four years are done. It’s over,” said Westbrook in an Aug. 1 video on her YouTube channel about former business partner Clark Swanson’s lawsuit against her and her brands. In the video, she also announced her plan to independently relaunch her makeup brand Tati Beauty. She and her husband, James Westbrook, are stepping down from Halo Beauty as part of the settlement.
“It was settled on the phone without lawyers,” she said of the lawsuit, which was filed by Swanson, her co-founder at supplement brand Halo Beauty, on Oct. 20, 2020. Naming the Westbrooks, Halo Beauty, and her makeup label parent company Tati Cosmetics, the lawsuit had accused Westbrook and her husband of fraud, negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty to Halo Beauty.
In the new video, Westbrook also revealed details on her plans to relaunch Tati Beauty, which she shuttered in November 2021. At the time, she listed both the COVID-19 pandemic and the lawsuit as reasons for the shutdown.
“I will be moving on from Halo Beauty, as will James, and the good thing is I can now focus my energy on relaunching my makeup brand,” she said. Moving forward, she also stated she is interested in launching a fragrance brand, which she said she had been “knee-deep” in with a trademarked name before “litigation got in the way” of the launch.
She added that the settlement of the lawsuit removed any legal issues with using her name on new brands.
“I have my name back and I’m free,” she said in the video.
She also noted that her Tati Beauty relaunch will not involve outside business partners. Tati Beauty’s original launch through a partnership with Seed Beauty was a point of contention in Swanson’s lawsuit, which alleged that the decision to create a makeup brand with a separate partner marked a breach of the Westbrooks’ fiduciary duty to Halo Beauty.
“I don’t want a partner in anything that I do,” she said.
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