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An Ed Sheeran gig
‘Secondary ticketing’ is the reselling of tickets for gigs and sports events online. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
‘Secondary ticketing’ is the reselling of tickets for gigs and sports events online. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Viagogo to move UK staff to New York as European investigations mount

This article is more than 5 years old

Ticketing website’s workforce relocation comes amid inquiries into its European operations

The controversial ticketing website Viagogo is preparing to move much of its UK workforce to New York, as it explores US expansion. The move comes at a time when the company faces multiple investigations into its affairs in Europe.

The Competition and Markets Authority warned the company in April that it was risking legal action for suspected breaches of consumer law, and National Trading Standards launched a separate investigation into “misleading” pricing just days later.

A source familiar with developments at Viagogo told the Guardian the company began notifying senior staff in London of plans to move their jobs to New York in May.

“Several senior developers have already relocated, but they’re mostly people that have been at Viagogo since nearly day one and so are probably invested in the company,” said the source.

“A few others are moving in the next couple of months, and others are leaving very soon.”

A recruitment page on Viagogo’s website features multiple job adverts seeking staff to join its New York team, as well as some for other parts of the world.

But the company is not recruiting for its office on London’s Fenchurch Street, where nearly 100 staff worked in customer services and website development last year, according to Companies House filings.

The progress of the CMA and Trading Standards investigations is not expected to be affected by Viagogo moving staff overseas. But it could make life more difficult for MPs seeking to persuade Viagogo executives to attend a select committee hearing scheduled for next month.

The company, whose headquarters are in Switzerland, refused to attend a hearing last year, in an almost unprecedented snub to a parliamentary committee.

A spokesperson declined to say whether the company would attend the new evidence session.

Sources in the ticket touting world told the Guardian that Viagogo has also started paying them for their sales through a US company rather than Viagogo AG, its Swiss head office.

Payments now arrive from Viagogo Entertainment Inc, registered in the US state of Delaware, which is known for its financial secrecy.

Delaware is also the location of Viagogo’s ultimate parent company, Pugnacious Endeavors, which is owned by founder Eric Baker.

The changes are thought to herald an expansion into US, where ticket resale has attracted less public criticism than in the UK and Europe.

Baker co-founded rival ticket resale firm StubHub in the US, after realising the huge potential for “secondary ticketing”, where people can resell tickets for gigs and sporting events online.

Most secondary ticketing sites claim they are simply providing a service for fans to recoup money for tickets they no longer want or can’t use.

But they have been criticised for providing a platform for professional touts who harvest tickets in bulk when they go on sale, in order to resell them at a vast mark-up.

The Competition and Markets Authority launched an investigation into suspected breaches of consumer law by secondary ticketing sites last year.

It later singled out Viagogo for failing to bow to its demand to comply with consumer laws about information provided to customers, warning the company it faced legal action if it did not comply with demands to make changes.

The Advertising Standards Authority referred Viagogo to National Trading Standards earlier this year over “misleading” pricing information.

Switzerland’s secretariat for economic affairs launched civil proceedings against Viagogo over suspected unfair business practices last year, while Fifa lodged a criminal complaint against the company over unauthorised sale of tickets for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

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Viagogo has elicited fierce criticism in the UK on multiple occasions, including a call from digital minister Margot James to boycott the company.

As well as investigations by the CMA and Trading Standards, the site has faced accusations of “callous profiteering” from charity events.

It has also been accused of withholding refunds from consumers, while a Guardian investigation revealed that touts were using the site to resell football tickets, which is illegal in the UK.

With scrutiny of secondary ticketing intensifying, Ticketmaster has said it would shut its own resale sites, GetMeIn and Seatwave, leaving StubHub and Viagogo as the only major players in the UK.

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