Organisers of the cancelled Formula E race in Vancouver are being sued by ticketing company, ATPI Travel and Events Canada, for more than C$3.3m (£2.2m/$2.4m/€2.5m).
The One Stop Strategy (OSS) Group, which organised the event, had sold roughly 30,000 tickets for the Canadian race, which was set to take place in early July, when it was announced that the event had been ‘postponed’ in April and eventually cancelled in June.
ATPI Travel and Events Canada acted as the ticketing provider for the event, but has been unable to process refunds for ticket-holders, as OSS has refused to cooperate with the company.
Now, it has been reported that ATPI Travel and Events Canada has filed a lawsuit against OSS for reimbursement of tickets after trying to reach the company.
In a statement to Canadian news outlet Global News, ATPI said: “We want to make it clear that the OSS Group has the sole responsibility with respect to the refund process.
“However, despite being clearly and contractually required to do so, the OSS Group has not returned the ticket sale proceeds for ATPI to process the ticket refunds.”
The suit was filed in Quebec Superior Court and says that OSS requires ‘the sale proceeds as well as all related costs…to be returned to ATPI within 30 days for customer refunds’.
ATPI also claims that it has been seeking the return of the funds since the end of June, with OSS refusing or neglecting to honour the contract between the companies when it comes to refunds.
As a result of ATPI chasing payment, customers have been seeking refunds directly from the company or by filing credit card ‘charge backs’. This means that more than $560,000 has been directly debited from ATPI’s account.
ATPI is looking for more than $2.78m in ticket sale proceeds to refund to ticket-holders and more than $656,000 to cover fees and costs for its services and customer refunds.