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Wantickets sues Eventbrite in dispute over former employees

By | Published on Thursday 24 November 2016

Eventbrite

Ticketing firm Wantickets.com has sued rival Eventbrite through the New York courts over the latter’s hire of the former’s founder and one-time CEO. As previously reported, those hires – Barak Schurr and Diego Carlin – who joined Eventbrite back in July, were themselves sued by their former company in September.

Back then, Wantickets CFO Richard Blakely claimed that his firm had actually been in talks to sell to Eventbrite at one point, but the deal fell through. As another buyer was then found for the company, Blakely alleged, it was discovered that Schurr and Carlin had been working for and promoting Eventbrite, even while still being on the Wantickets payroll. That discovery led to the two execs basically being fired, he said.

Schurr and Carlin denied that version of events, though. The former said that, while there had been conversations with Eventbrite about a possible acquisition, “at no time during this process was I moving business from Wantickets to Eventbrite”.

He added that there was no scandal around his and Carlin’s departure from Wantickets, with Blakeley telling the two execs that the firm’s new owners simply wanted to put their own management team in place. It was only then, Schurr insisted, that he started talking to Eventbrite about taking his dance music expertise there.

It was initially thought that the September legal action targeted Eventbrite itself, though it transpired only Schurr and Carlin were being sued. Until now. Repeating the allegations Blakely made against his former employees, the new lawsuit against Eventbrite then says, according to Amplify: “[Eventbrite] was eager to take advantage of the disloyalty of Mr Schurr and Mr Carlin”.

It goes on: “Eventbrite pitched itself to potential clients via the introductions from Mr Schurr and/or Mr Carlin, knowing that Mr Schurr and Mr Carlin were still employees of Wantickets and that Mr Schurr’s and Mr Carlin’s diversion of business violated their duties to Wantickets. Eventbrite even paid for Mr Schurr to take a business trip to Ibiza, Spain so that he could develop business for Eventbrite”.

To that end, Wantickets is suing Eventbrite for “aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty and tortuous interference”.

For its part, Eventbrite denies any wrongdoing whatsoever, with a spokesperson telling CMU this morning: “It’s a competitive industry, and competing fairly is of critical importance and central to our ethics at Eventbrite. We maintain that we have not engaged in any wrongdoing or inappropriate conduct. We dispute Wantickets’ allegations and intend to defend our position”.



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