High Court intervenes in UK ticket re-sale row

Ticketnews.com reports that UK secondary ticket company Viagogo has been ordered by the High Court to turn over the names and other personal information of resellers of Rugby Football Union (RFU) tickets who have sold tickets for a premium above face value because the RFU tries to control resale to help keep prices affordable. The league took a unique approach in their case against Viagogo by convincing the judge, Mr Justice Tugendhat, that they considered those who bought tickets for above face value to be trespassers, because those fans allegedly violated certain RFU (contract of sale) rules that disallow the resale of tickets above face value. Mr Justice Tugendhat said “a reasonable person holding an RFU ticket (however he has acquired it) should not be surprised or aggrieved that RFU wish to know his identity," adding "The identity of individuals who enter onto premises such as the Stadium may be important to the owners of those premises for a number of obvious reasons, including security. And as RFU point out, Viagogo's own conditions permit it to communicate the personal data of its customers to partner organisations, presumably for marketing purposes. The customers who Viagogo refers to as "innocent" might be presumed to suppose that RFU was a partner of Viagogo, or that RFU had as much interest in using their names for marketing as Viagogo's partners."