Legal action against Eventbrite for unlawful discrimination

My solicitor has the link to this thread and is reading with interest.

The cases that have been heard so far seem to have attracted real interest within the legal profession, especially Allison's which could be attended on line. They raised new issues and there are precedents to be set. (Eventbrite's behaviour, like that of Paypal to Toby Young, suggests unwelcome cultural overreach by US corporations.) People here and elsewhere will have formed opinions of the legal professionals involved, and lawyers presumably might think there is a chance to either build a name, or to achieve something constructive.

Alternatively is there envy at the fangirling Ben Cooper and his support wren received?

A new slogan: Came for the feminism, and stayed for the AIBU/The Dog House/ Weaning.

Dug a little, good luck Spero please keep us posted on progress here. I will dig some more next month

Yes. This shutting down of women is really insidious. And all and any laws will be used to accomplish it.

Every single thing needs taking out, putting on the table and scrutinised.

Good luck Spero. .

Mumsnetters are brilliant at helping with this sort of thing. Thousands upon thousands of women in one place with an almost infinite breadth of knowledge. It's a resource that's never existed in history.

Yes, I agree. Before Maya's subsequent victories, it was her loss in the first employment tribunal that made everybody sit up and take notice about how TR activism was affecting work based relations, and just how insidious it had/has become. That loss was victory in itself.

Hopefully, though @Spero you will be on to a winner! I have dug a little today and will dig a bit more in the next week or so. Good luck X

IANAL,@MoirasSaggyBundles, but I think that is a very astute question and I would be interested in the answer. Regarding whether "being GC" could be assumed as a characteristic of the majority of potential ticket buyers, I would think that was a perfectly reasonable assumption, not made less reasonable because the assumed protected characteristic is belief rather than one of the obvious physical ones like sex or age.

Where is your defendant domiciled? Even for a Part 8 claim you'll need permission to serve out of the jurisdiction if they're outside the UK.

OP’s twitter is a good place to start.

mobile.twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1589684471527182336

Sometimes, it doesn't matter if you are not even likely to win.

Sometimes, it matters that you stand up & fight.

I'd love to garden a little, it's to rainy outside for me to do much today but I don't know where the planter is.

Yes, I think a part 8 application on the q of whether there was EqA discrimination is a better road to go down than the contract route at this point.

Here's a left field question: could your 85 ticket holders have grounds for an EqA claim also, on the basis of direct or indirect discrimination? Eg, if in evidence Eventbrite were told that not only you but everyone buying a ticket is an evil Terf, and they gave equal weight to both in the decision to pull the plug? I don't know how indirect discrimination works if there is an assumption of a characteristic (only GC believers would buy a ticket) as opposed to knowledge of one.

I think this is an important issue but requires analysis of whether @Spero can be deemed to be "a consumer" for the purposes of the contract. If you look at the T&C, she's classed as an "organiser". As I understand it, the contract was to provide her with a platform to advertise her event and tickets to be sold through it, but she's not the person buying the tickets. There's a different set of contractual clauses for ticket buyers, and IIRC, the contracting party on Eventbrite's side is a Rep of Ireland entity. It's a different contractual relationship for ticket buyers than the relationship Spero has from my reading.

DH was optimistic. Basically, a non- contractual claim can be brought in England & Wales under the EqA, and the contractual T&C won't trump that claim if there is evidence of discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic. The initial hurdle will be seeking permission to serve out of jurisdiction by passing the 3 stage test under CPR 6.37 - getting your evidence together to show a good arguable case is key (and beating the very tight limitation period).

Eventbrite's obvious defence is that there was no discrimination under EqA and that the T&C applied and were invoked correctly. If they succeed, you go back to a claim under a contract with a US jurisdiction clause, and arguing Eventbrite incorrectly/unreasonably invoked their discretionary contractual rights under the community guidelines.

You need advice about simultaneously bringing a claim under both contract and the EqA. There will be issues as to jurisdiction on the former. You would probably want to apply for an order to stay the contractual element while the EqA element is adjudicated.

That sounds like good news.
Pro Bono too!

This wasn't a cross border digital service. They were selling tickets for an event in England. If I buy a toaster from John Lewis I am not engaging in a cross border digital service just because the receipt comes via AWS servers in the US.

@eurochick
As a reminder, here is the full exchange (with additional notes added in parentheses)

ChazsBrilliantAttitude
How many of those contracts were governed by U.K. law? (Those contracts refers to international contracts, plural)

Discovereads
Most of them. ( thinking about international contracts plural we had that were governed by foreign laws, usually US law or that fell under some combination of U.K. laws)

ChazsBrilliantAttitude
No contract is under U.K. law. It’s not a thing. Scots law is different from English law so a contract is subject to either English law or Scottish law but never U.K. law.

Discovereads
MoD international contracts are (was under the impression still talking about international contracts as a plural whole and not a hypothetical contract in the singular. Besides, there are UK laws that apply U.K. wide to all countries within the U.K.. So U.K. law is “a thing” in the same way that EU law is a thing in that it applies EU-wide despite there also being different national laws within different member nations of the EU)

eurochick · Today 14:42
As a lawyer with more than 20 years of experience of international disputes I have yet to see a contract that has "UK law" as the governing law that wasn't either drafted by a lay person or a trainee. Scots law, NI law and the law of England and Wales differ in a number of pretty significant respects. I'm somewhat concerned for the MoD if what Discovereads says is correct. (You also switched to contract in the singular. Then wrote that I’d said a contract in the singular would cite “U.K. law” as the governing law….which I had definitely not said, I’d only been talking and thinking about international contracts as a plural whole and whether they fell under U.K. laws vs foreign laws)

So I responded to you:
Discovereads
I was asked in regards to international contracts:
How many of those contracts were governed by U.K. law?


and responded


Most of them (thinking about international contracts plural we had that were governed by foreign laws, usually US law)


As in most of the international contracts (plural) I worked with fell under U.K. laws as compared to another nations’ laws.


I wasn’t saying that a contract (singular) would state within it that it is “governed by U.K. law.” Obviously, when you look through a stack of MoD contracts, they would individually specify whether the governing laws were English, Scots, etc.usually depending on place of performance or origin of supplier.


And much of what we do is governed by U.K. wide laws because we are the U.K. Government. We are not a business in England or Scotland or Wales.


But the question was deliberately vague I think.

Hope my response with added notes makes more sense to you now.

Really hope they haven't, I went on Conway Hall website and looked through all the listings up to end of December, I really hope I'm looking in the wrong place or something.

Hi @Spero just thought I'd let you know, I went on to The Conway Hall, your event isn't listed. Is that because it's sold out? I hope they haven't cancelled it!

From what I can see the Equality Act protects someone who is in the UK and is discriminated against in the UK, regardless of what any contract says and regardless of the jurisdiction of the contract.