Winnipeg-based travel and ticketing company Roadtrips, which was sued during the summer by the Vancouver Olympics Committee (VANOC), has settled the lawsuit.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but VANOC had alleged that Roadtrips was not authorized to sell Winter Olympics tickets, which the company was reportedly doing in conjunction with travel packages. Roadtrips disputed VANOC’s claim, and company President David Guenther told news outlets that the lawsuit was “completely false” and was aimed at defaming Roadtrips’s “corporate reputation.” Among other claims, Roadtrips also reportedly believed that VANOC was unfairly monopolizing the event’s ticketing process by trying to control all aspects of it.
Initially, VANOC tried to take a hard line against the resale of Olympic tickets for the February 2010 event, but late in the summer the committee reversed its position and embraced the secondary ticket market to the point that it is about to launch its own resale Web site later this month.
“VANOC is pleased to announce its lawsuit with Roadtrips, initiated last spring, has been settled,” the committee said in a statement. “The terms of the settlement are confidential. As part of the settlement, Roadtrips has agreed that, on a going forward basis, it will obtain all 2010 Winter Games tickets required for its customers from Jet Set Sports, VANOC’s authorized ticket reseller in Canada.”
VANOC sought to discover where Roadtrips was obtaining Olympics tickets, and according to CTV.ca, one of the alleged sources of tickets was an unnamed Netherlands-based company, which Roadtrips identified to VANOC. If there were other sources of tickets, they were not publicly disclosed under the terms of the settlement.
A Roadtrips spokesperson did not return a message seeking comment, but Guenther told CTV.ca, “The terms of the settlement are confidential, and cannot be disclosed. No further comment will be made regarding the matter.”
In 2008, Roadtrips was one of the companies that reportedly struggled with filling some of its Beijing Olympic ticket orders, which led to lawsuits and several customers ending up without tickets for the Opening Ceremonies. The company issued refunds for undelivered tickets, but the company was later sued by a Texas lawyer on behalf of other aggrieved ticket buyers. The lawsuit was reportedly dismissed.