TicketTurk Pays Up

TicketTurk appears to have given up appealing a Turkish court’s ruling that it’s responsible for paying Garbage and Megadeth the balance of their fees for Rock Istanbul 2005 and finally handed over the money.

The country’s second-largest ticketing operation made a written undertaking to guarantee the fees when Rock Istanbul promoters Boray Dundar and Fil Yapim ran out of money and the event was in danger of collapse.

TicketTurk stepped in to ensure it continued but later claimed the written undertaking to pay the fees wasn’t valid under Turkish law.

An Istanbul court granted Charmenko, the agency that booked the US acts onto the Rock Istanbul bill, leave to seize Dundar and Yapim’s proverbial “goods and chattels.” But when bailiffs arrived at Yapim’s Istanbul office, the recovery men found an eviction notice nailed to the door.

At the end of 2007, the court found TicketTurk’s undertaking to underwrite the fees was legally binding. But TicketTurk and its lawyers have since delayed the payout by mounting – and losing – numerous appeals.

Savas Inandioglu of Topdemir & Inandioglu, who represented both acts, won’t disclose the amount of the settlements because it would breach client confidentiality, but he did say the court also ruled TicketTurk must pay the acts a 40 percent surcharge on their fees as compensation for acting in bad faith, plus interest and costs.

Inandioglu said Turkish law may still allow TicketTurk to mount a further appeal, but the fact the money has showed up suggests it has accepted defeat.

So far, TicketTurk managing director Gulseren Onanc hasn’t responded to Pollstar’s request for comment.