A High Court battle has erupted as three long-standing Royal Albert Hall seat holders launch a lawsuit against the venue's corporation, seeking over £500,000 in damages.
They allege the institution has "unlawfully" deprived them of their rights to their seats.
Arthur George, who holds 12 seats across two separate boxes, and William and Alexander Stockler, owners of four seats in a single box, claim the Corporation of the Hall of Arts and Sciences – commonly known as the Royal Albert Hall (RAH) – has excluded them from more performances than its rules permit.
Their legal representatives are now asking a judge to declare the exclusion practice unlawful.
They are also seeking an injunction to prevent the corporation from restricting access beyond the terms stipulated in the Royal Albert Hall Act 1966.
They told the High Court on Friday that seat holders have a “proprietary right to use their seats, or to otherwise sell or give away their tickets”.
The trio are asking a judge to rule in their favour without a trial and award an interim payment of £500,000 in damages, ahead of the full amount being decided.
The corporation opposes the application, with its lawyers saying the case should proceed to trial.
They told a hearing in London that the body had excluded members on other occasions, but this was approved by members by way of a document titled Memorandum and Guidelines.
David Satwell, representing Mr George and the Stocklers, told the court on Friday: “This isn’t a breach of contract case, we say this is a wrongful use of someone else’s property.
“We say, if you take someone else’s property and use it, you are liable to compensate the property owner for that use.
“One of the questions is, ‘how would those claimants have used their seats?’
“Would they have gone there, would they have sold them, or would they have not used them at all?
“What a property owner does with their property is a matter for them.”
He added: “If seats have been taken away wrongly, we say you would then have to consider what the value of those seats would have been.”
In written submissions, Mr Satwell said: “It is not disputed by the parties that the corporation has exceeded its power … by granting more exclusive lets than it is permitted to do under that provision, that it has been doing so for a number of years, and that it intends to do so into the future.
“In 2008, the corporation acknowledged to the members that it had, for several years, been exceeding its entitlement … to treat events as exclusive lets.”
In written submissions for the corporation, Simon Taube KC said: “The claimants, who have each been members of the corporation since before 2008, appear not to have voted against the Memorandum and Guidelines until the 2023 AGM.”
He added: “The background to the claim is that in recent years the claimants’ relations with the corporation have deteriorated because of the claimants’ complaints about various financial matters.”
Mr Taube also said: “The corporation’s case, in very brief outline, is that even if the claimants can identify a theoretical interference with their rights, it does not damage the claimants as members and, in any case, the corporation has a defence based on the claimants’ consent to or acquiescence in the granting of additional exclusives.”
The hearing, before Sir Anthony Mann, is due to conclude on Friday.
