6 August 2021
Announcement
We have received our members’ expression of concerns towards Informa Markets (“Informa”)’s for its continuous ignorance of their requests for Deposit refunds (as defined below) and their continuous attempts to divert and transfer such deposits to other event(s) that they have not agreed to since 2020.
Refusal to return deposits paid
We were given to learn that Informa, being one of the world’s most prominent exhibition service providers, was unable to deliver the following exhibitions within the agreed timeframe:
1. Jewellery & Gem Asia June 2020 and
2. Jewellery & Gem World September 2020 (collectively referred to as “Defaulted Exhibitions”;
3. Jewellery & Gem Asia June 2021 (referred to as “Affected Exhibition”).
A number of our members, who contracted to exhibit at either one or more of these Defaulted Exhibitions, had paid the relevant sums of deposits to Informa to secure their registration back in mid- to late-2019 and early 2020 (“Deposits”) based on the agreement that Informa will deliver a jewellery exhibition for the duration of days agreed or in the case of postponement, at a rescheduled date, which is deemed to take place on a date within 6 months from the original date of exhibition. In the case of cancellation or postponement, Informa agreed to give a notice to exhibitors on the change. However, we were given to understand that Informa neither postponed the Defaulted Exhibitions to a date within its 6 months’ time extension, but it also did not give any option of refund of Deposits to exhibitors in this obvious situation of cancellation. Despite several correspondence with our members and with HKJMA, representing our members, on a number of various occasions, Informa ignored all requests for Deposit refunds and had retained these deposits without justification.
Our members are extremely aggravated by Informa’s (1) retention of their exhibition deposits for the Defaulted and/or Affected Exhibitions and (2) not being able to deliver a postponed exhibition within the agreed 6 months time frame. This irresponsible behaviour is unacceptable. Our members’ legal rights to claim against any unreturned deposits and/or sums of money incurred due to Informa’s unilateral retention of such sums, in addition to any interests accumulated thereof, and all legal rights are hereby reserved.
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