Crucified without cause
Very little explanation is needed to understand that former decathlete for the Philippine team, David Bunevacz, is a victim of a smear campaign that’s been perpetuated against him recently involving his business of selling 2010 Winter Olympics tickets.
Indeed, it’s simply a case of a business deal gone wrong – but not of Bunevacz’s doing as shown by facts.
In January 2009, Gene Hammett, who owns ticket dealership Action Seating in Alpharetta, Georgia, struck an agreement with Bunevacz for the former’s company to buy from the latter several tickets to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada which, in turn, will be sold to consumers.
Like any legitimate business transaction, the two signed a contract that contains provisions on how the sale would be conducted and consummated, as well as ones that would safeguard their respective interest should the deal collapse at any point and regardless which party caused it. Ultimately, the agreement subscribes to this basic and universally accepted business participle: Pay for a product and it’s yours. In that order, there’s even a Filipino slang term for it – “kaliwaan.”
According to the Purchase Agreement, the tickets were to be paid for in four installment but Hammett reneged on this.
Hammett failed to pay in full; hence, no tickets were delivered.
The official press statement of Bunevacz’s lawyer, Michael M. Amir, uses an analogy that upholds Bunevacz’s prudent and valid business decisions: “Just as a department store won’t let a customer walk out of the store clutching a half-paid for designer suit, the tickets provider… declined to deliver the packages of Winter Olympic tickets… without being paid in full.”
There was no reason for Hammett to doubt Bunevacz’s capability to deliver on his part of the deal. In 2008, Hammett bought – and got – from Bunevacz and his father, Joseph, “a couple thousand tickets” to the Beijing Olympics that year. The Bunevacz’s had a proven track record. They earned it.
Early this year, after their transaction for the purchased of the 2010 Winter Olympics tickets fell through due to non-payment, Hammett had himself interviewed by a reporter of US broadsheet publication, The Seattle Times. In the interview, Hammett, as Atty. Amir puts it in his official press statement, spun “a tale of mystery and greed” about the manner while “portraying himself as a victim and creating an attractive scapegoat, hoping to disguise that his problems were of his own doing.”
More, Hammett provided The Seattle Times with “copies of the confidential agreement, cherry-picked business e-mails… and recordings that may have been illegally made.” Several of these key, confidential documents were posted by The Seattle Times which, by now, could have been accessed by millions through the Internet.
Bunevacz has sued Hammett, of course, for breach of contract, fraud, defamation and declaratory relief. And though the justice system says that either of the two must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, Hammett has already wrought immeasurable damage on Bunevacz’s professional and personal reputa tion.
Despite this, Bunevacz is “willing to repay Hammett” as soon as they settle on the amount even if the money the latter had paid to strike a blow against Bunevacz?
The press statement from Atty. Amir offers this theory: “To save face among his disgruntled customers, some of whom have already filed suits against him…”
At Bunevacz’s expense.
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