The Supreme Court rejected the appeal filed against the sentence condemning the companies Recreo Producciones S.p.A. (The Fanlab) and Punto Ticket S.A., for the suspension of the performance of the American band Aerosmith, for violating the law for the protection of consumer rights “Santiago Rock City” festival, on September 30, 2017.
In a majority decision, the First Chamber of the Supreme Court – composed of Ministers Arturo Prado, Mauricio Silva, Ministers María Angelica Repetto, María Soledad Mello and lawyer (i) Raúl Fuentes – denied an error in the contested sentence. , issued by the Court of Appeal of Santiago, which affirmed the first degree, partially accepting the demand for the protection of the collective interests of consumers presented by Cernac.
“An examination of the impugned judgment reveals that it is not effective that the evidence, in its entirety, was not valued by the original Judges after it was analyzed and properly weighted by them, as all As may be seen from the reading of the judgment in appeal, while rejecting its merits, the consent of the alleged defense in the conditions already laid down”, indicates the ruling.
“In fact, a reading of the opinion of the first degree court reveals the rationale behind the decision to reject the defense of the defendants”, adds the sentence which was adopted with a vote against Minister Repetto.
Class action
In April 2018, Sernac filed this class action in his role as arbitrator with the aim of The FanLab and Punto Tickets adequately compensating consumers affected by the cancellation of the North American band’s shows.
The decision was taken by Cernac after the festival’s producers, The FanLab, were unwilling to offer adequate compensation to consumers who purchased tickets for the show, via collective arbitration.
Just four days after the show took place, Sernac received over 2,000 complaints from consumers after the event’s organizers announced that the band would not be performing.
In their claims, they indicated that the conditions of the show had changed, and many of them, when the main band of the festival, Aerosmith, did not appear, demanded a full refund of the money paid for the ticket.
As reported by the companies, the band Aerosmith did not appear at the festival due to health problems of vocalist Steven Tyler, but the producer unilaterally offered only those consumers who bought tickets a refund of 50% of the ticket price. , which is not sufficient in Sernac’s opinion.
In the end, the show was performed with the presence of only three of the four committed musical groups, following modifications introduced to the original programming: Cuervos del Sur, Marky Ramone and Def Leppard.
