The Malaysian Insight

LOCAL independent publisher Fixi is taking Kedai Buku 1Malaysia Sdn Bhd (KB1M) to court over its failure to pay arrears of more than RM100,000 from the sale of Fixi books. 

Fixi founder Amir Muhammad said the suit was filed at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court on December 8. 

“The last time KB1M made payment to us was in November 2016, which was more than a year ago. Since then, we have contacted the concerned parties several times but there has been no response. 

“On November 1, 2017, we sent a letter of demand to KB1M through our lawyer to ask them to settle the outstanding payment,” Fixi said in a statement published on its Facebook today. 

The letter of demand was ignored by the company, Fixi said. 

“Therefore, we have no choice but to file suit to recover the revenue from the sales of our books,” it said. 

When contacted, Amir told The Malaysian Insight that he believed Fixi was not the only publisher KB1M had not paid. 

“They also owe money to many other publishers; we are not the only one and we are not the biggest one.

“There are other publishers which KB1M owes a lot more but they (publishers) haven’t taken any action yet as far as I know. The total amount is quite a lot, maybe a few millions,” he said. 

“They seem to have closed down most of their shops, I’m not sure how many still exist but as a company, they still exist.” 

According to a media report dated April last year KB1M has five branches nationwide – in Wangsa Maju, UTC Perak, UTC Kuantan, UTC Alor Star, and Gong Badak. 

KB1M website kb1monline.com.my is under maintenance. 

Malaysian Institute of Translation & Books managing director Mohd Khair Ngadiron told The Malaysian Insight that it was not appropriate for the company to comment as the case was now a court matter.

KB1M, which sells books at affordable prices, is an initiative introduced by Prime Minister Najib Razak that was launched in September 2012. 

Fixi, which specialises in urban pulp fiction in Malay and English, has expanded to include several imprints such as Fixi Novo for English-language Malaysian books, Fixi Verso for Malay translations of current international bestsellers, Fixi Mono for non-fiction, and Fixi Retro for reprints of old Malay-language classics. – December 12, 2017.