Viagogo sues Ed Sheeran’s UK promoter over claims of fraud

Controversial resale company Viagogo says it has issued legal proceedings against Ed Sheeran’s UK promoter over the cancellation of 10,000 tickets to Sheeran’s 2017 UK tour bought through its platform.

It is claiming in a German court fraud by Kilimanjaro Live, run by Stuart Galbraith.

Swiss-based Viagogo says tickets purchased through its platform were declared void, and Sheeran fans told to buy another ticket, and get refunds from Viagogo.

It says Kilimanjaro Live as a result ended up “pocketing millions of pounds in duplicate sales”.

Viagogo insists that all tickets were authentic, and will present in court “a comprehensive file of incontrovertible photographic and filmed evidence” backed by “hundreds” of supportive witness statements.

It also claims that until recently Galbraith regularly used Viagogo “to sell thousands of tickets to a range of his artists’ events, presumably without their knowledge given his public stance against ticket resale.”

Galbraith says he has not received any legal paperwork so far and in any case dismissed the claims as “totally false”.

Before tickets went on sale for the Sheeran tour, Galbraith approached all four of the UK’s leading secondary sites – Seatwave, Get Me In, StubHub and Viagogo – and told them not to list Sheeran tickets citing consumer protection law. All but Viagogo had complied.

Viagogo has now filed its claim ahead of its head of business development Chris Miller along with promoters including Galbraith being questioning by MPs on the Commons digital, culture, media and sport select committee over its business practices, on Wednesday, September 4.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority filed a lawsuit against Viagogo alleging breaches of consumer law.

Both Sheeran and Kilimanjaro Live have been among the most vocal critics of Viagogo’s tactics of reselling tickets at well above the face value.

Kilimanjaro Live was one of two promoters, along with the music industry’s anti-scalping lobby group FanFair Allliance, whose complaints to the UK’s advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), saw it refer Viagogo to National Trading Standards and initiate sanctions in May.

Yesterday, the ASA announced it dropped its complaint against Viagogo and lifted its sanctions, saying the platform.

had made enough changes to its pricing model to satisfy its concerns.

It complaints were that Viagogo was misleading consumers by not advertising booking fees and taxes upfront. These were added on during the booking process.

Since then the ASA worked with Viagogo to be more transparent, and all add-on prices are now listed in the original price.

The ASA stressed that its decision is not connected with the consumer watchdog Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)’s announcing on August 31 that it is taking Viagogo to court because it refused to make changes to allegedly breaking consumer protection laws.

MP Sharon Hodgson, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on ticket abuse thought it “extremely interesting” that Viagogo was suddenly agreeable to being compliant.

“It seems that being taken to the High Court by the CMA and seeing the writing on the wall with the winding up of Get Me In! and Seatwave (by its parent Ticketmaster) is what was needed before Viagogo decide to play by the rules and fall in line with ASA guidelines,” she said.