When Firing Your CEO Goes Terribly Wrong

Wantickets is seeking a court order against its former president and CEO after the pair were fired, went to work for Eventbrite and took Wantickets’ biggest client with them. In their defense, former Wantickets president and founder Barak Schurr and former CEO Diego Carlin counter that

Wantickets’ owner had told them to sell the company to Eventbrite and that the big client decided to make the switch after negotiations with Wantickets collapsed following the men’s firing.

Wantickets CFO Richard Blakeley now says the company has lost its biggest client, a Las Vegas casino-resort, and accused the men of actively trying to send the Electric Zoo Festival, the BPM Festival and the XO Festival to Eventbrite.

As evidence of alleged wrongdoing, Wantickets CFO Richard Blakely presented dozens of emails between the men, Eventbrite executives and other Wantickets sales staff. Blakely says it is evidence that the two were working on behalf of a rival – Schurr contends he was simply doing what he was told by Wanticket management as a potential sale nearly closed.

Schurr founded Wantickets in 2000 and grew the company into a competitive mid-tier firm used at nightclubs and EDM events. In 2014 he sold the company to the Chehebar family. In April, the Chehebar family instructed Schurr to sell the company to Eventbrite.

For reasons unclear, the sale collapsed on July 1. Wantickets said Eventbrite was never serious, while Schurr said the Chehebar family became impatient and canceled the sale only 71 days after Eventbrite issued a memo of intent to buy Wantickets.

Eventually, Wantickets was sold to a guy named Joe Schnair, who quickly fired Schurr and Carlin and denied them severance. That might have been a bad idea. Wantickets is now close to losing another large client to Eventbrite, an unnamed nightclub representing 8 percent of the company’s revenue, according to court filings.

In the coming months, a judge in the case will be asked to decide if Schurr and Carlin should be barred from working for Eventbrite.

“It is doubtful that an injunction will prevent them from earning a living,” Wanticket’s CFO wrote. “Mr. Schurr is a salesman and Mr. Carlin is a manager, and their skills are hardly unique to the ticketing sector.”

For their part, Eventbrite released a statement defending the hiring of the two men.

“It’s a competitive industry, and competing fairly is of critical importance and central to our ethics at Eventbrite,” the statement read. “We have not engaged in any wrongdoing or inappropriate conduct.”