The Australian Grand Prix Corporation has been dealt a costly and very public defeat, after failing to overturn a $2.84 million compensation order tied to the COVID-era cancellation of a Robbie Williams concert in Melbourne.
A three-judge Court of Appeal panel today backed a 2024 Victorian Supreme Court ruling, unanimously rejecting the Grand Prix organisers’ bid to appeal and leaving the multimillion-dollar damages bill intact.
The dispute stretches back to March 2020, when Formula One’s season-opening race at Albert Park was scrapped just hours before gates were due to open on March 13, as the threat of COVID-19 bore down on global sport. Williams, whose hits include Let Me Entertain You and Angels, had been booked to perform at Lakeside Stadium the following day as part of the Grand Prix entertainment program.
That show never happened either.
World Touring Melbourne, the live music promoter behind the planned concert, later took the Australian Grand Prix Corporation to court, arguing the gig was cancelled on the back of misleading information about government health advice.
Justice Clyde Croft agreed. In his 2024 decision, he found that organisers had deceived the promoter by claiming Victoria’s then chief health officer, Brett Sutton, had directed that the Williams concert could not go ahead as planned — when no such directive existed.
An email sent by organisers to World Touring Melbourne at 4:25pm on March 13 stated that Dr Sutton had advised the Grand Prix either be cancelled or run without patrons. That message underpinned the call to axe the concert.
But earlier that same day, the former CHO had texted Grand Prix officials something very different: while he supported the decision to cancel the Williams show, the final call, he made clear, rested with the organisers themselves.
The gap between what health authorities actually said and what the promoter was told proved decisive. Justice Croft ordered the Australian Grand Prix Corporation to pay $2.84 million in damages to World Touring Melbourne for loss of earnings.
As the legal battle dragged on, one detail from that chaotic weekend in 2020 continued to stand out. While the Formula One race and the Williams concert were pulled, other major events in Melbourne pushed ahead — National Rugby League fixtures and a concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl went on as scheduled.
The Court of Appeal’s unanimous stance now locks in a judgment that not only hits the Grand Prix organisers in the pocket, but also underlines a blunt lesson from sport’s pandemic turmoil: when the stakes run into the millions, every word about who ordered what, and why, can decide the final score.
