On December 29th, the organizing unit of the music night "Come here, four birds of the sky" fell into a serious crisis when audiences went to Ngoc Viet's Facebook page to demand tickets back, and left comments criticizing and calling for a boycott of Ngoc Viet's organized programs.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha - Director of Ngoc Viet Education Co., Ltd. (also known as Ngoc Viet Corporation) said that she is working with functional agencies, and will then arrange to refund tickets to the audience. However, Ngoc Viet cannot compensate for other losses, "due to insufficient ability to pay".
The question is, in this case, can the audience and artists sue Ngoc Viet company?
Buying tickets is a form of contract establishment
Talking to Lao Dong reporters about the music night "Come here, four birds of paradise", Lawyer Hoang Ha (Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association) said: "Buying online tickets on digital platforms is completely considered a "Civil Contract" with full legal value to sue. According to current Vietnamese law, the form of the contract is not limited to paper documents with signatures and stamps.
Accordingly, the Law on Electronic Transactions 2023 stipulates that data messages have written value. Transactions carried out through electronic means have legal value equivalent to traditional transactions. Article 119 of the 2015 Civil Code stipulates that civil transactions through electronic means in the form of data messages are considered written transactions.
When the audience pressed the "Buy tickets" button and successfully paid, a service provision contract was established.
This "contract" includes: Confirmation notification (which is the successful ticket booking confirmation email or QR Code sent to the phone), the regulations that we usually select "approve" before payment on the application, website - this is the detailed content of the contract. And, proving the transaction is a bank transfer statement or electronic receipt from the electronic wallet.
Unlike paper tickets that are easily lost or torn, online tickets have outstanding advantages when used as evidence such as high authenticity, with a clear timestamp (timestamp) about the purchase time and payment time. Buying online tickets has permanent storage, this information is stored on the server of the ticket sales platform and in the user's email, making it very difficult for the organizers to deny it.
What does the audience need if they sue?
Ticket prices for the music night "Come here, four sky birds" are listed from 600 thousand VND to 7 million VND.
According to Lawyer Hoang Ha, "The audience's damage is 600 thousand VND or 7 million VND, and they have the full right to file a lawsuit in court. According to the provisions of the 2023 Law on Protection of Consumer Rights, cases protecting consumer rights with a transaction value of less than 100 million VND are also subject to simplified procedures for faster resolution.
To prepare a lawsuit or denunciation file, according to the lawyer, viewers need to perform the following steps: Take screenshots, save ticket codes, order codes and confirmation notifications from the platform.
Store emails or SMS messages about related information. Extract statements containing money transferred to buy tickets for the program.
In this case, if the ticket seller is a third party (professional ticket sales platform), they also have a joint responsibility in providing transaction information and supporting viewers to recover money from the organizers according to the provisions of the Law on Protection of Consumer Rights.
Audiences are completely assured that the QR code or email confirmation in your phone is the sharpest legal weapon to confront the Organizing Committee in court" - Lawyer Hoang Ha said.
According to information provided by lawyer Hoang Ha, currently Vietnamese law does not have the "Class Action" mechanism (collective lawsuit) like in some other countries, that is, one person sues and the judgment applies to thousands of others.
In Vietnam, we currently only have the mechanism "Civil case with multiple parties" or "Collected authorization". If 3,000 viewers want to sue, in theory, 3,000 people must sign the authorization document (usually requiring notarization).
The fact that the Director of Ngoc Viet Corporation Co., Ltd. replied "no compensation to the audience because the company has no ability to pay", according to the lawyer, this is an irresponsible answer.
This is not a valid explanation for exemption from liability, but in fact is an admission of weaknesses in financial capacity and risk management" - Lawyer Hoang Ha gave his opinion.
According to the law, "Payment Capacity" is not related to "Compensation Obligation". In civil law, a party's lack of money does not mean that they are not at fault or not liable for compensation.
According to Article 13, Article 360, Article 419 of the 2015 Civil Code, when violating a contract causing damage, the faulty party must compensate for all actual damage incurred. The fact that the BTC ran out of money is only their financial situation, while the compensation obligation still exists and may be enforced.
Organizing a large show but without a risk hedge fund for show cancellations is a serious mistake in business. Businesses are not allowed to push that risk to the audience – who have fulfilled their payment obligations.
When businesses declare that they are no longer able to pay, viewers need to immediately take urgent measures such as requesting the freezing of accounts or assets of the company to ensure judgment enforcement later.
If it is proven that the organizing committee (BTC) used the money from ticket sales for other purposes, leading to no money left to return to the audience, the heads of the companies may be considered for personal responsibility or prosecuted for the crime of "Abusing trust to appropriate property".
Lawyer Hoang Ha believes that a large-scale program organization with many top stars declaring that it is unable to pay for the damage caused by itself is an insult to professionalism.
For audiences far away, you should not just stop at demanding tickets. Collect invoices and send a written request for official compensation.
If the Organizing Committee officially confirms in writing that they cannot pay, the audience can use that document as a basis to request the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports to revoke the license permanently for this unit. Then request the Court to open bankruptcy proceedings for the enterprise to liquidate assets and repay debts to creditors (here are the audience and artists)" - according to Lawyer Hoang Ha.
