Firms fined for illegal sale of tickets for 2012 London Games

PanARMENIAN.Net - Three companies which illegally sold tickets for the 2012 London Olympic Games have been fined a total of £70, 000, according to london24.com.

Sportsworld Group Ltd has been hit with a £50,000 fine and £7,500 costs, while Imperial Corporate Events Ltd and Events International were each fined £10,000.

Sportsworld Group was found guilty at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday of breaching Olympic ticket legislation.

The case against Sportsworld Group involved 74 tickets amounting to £420,000 of sales, Scotland Yard said.

The group’s sister company Events International and Imperial Corporate Events had pleaded guilty to the illegal sale of Olympic and Paralympic tickets, contrary to section 31 of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Act 2006 at an earlier hearing.

Sportsworld Group was an authorized ticket reseller in some countries, but the sale to Events International was in breach of its contract with London 2012 organizers.

Detectives from Scotland Yard’s Operation Podium investigation were alerted by companies which had bought corporate hospitality packages from Imperial Corporate Events, only to later realise they had bought tickets from an unauthorized firm.

Detectives found that Sportsworld had sold a £1,600 face value ticket for the 100m final event to Events International for £4,200.

Events International then sold it to Imperial Corporate Events for £4,800, which in turn packaged it with a night in a hotel and sold it to the customer for £10,000, Scotland Yard said.

Imperial Corporate Events sold more than £1 million worth of tickets as part of Olympic packages to corporate customers that ranged from large corporations to small contractors.