BAFTA Trustees May Have Broken Charity Law Over Free Tickets

By Daniel Okafor

BAFTA trustees may have breached U.K. charity and company law by accepting complimentary awards ceremony tickets that never appeared in the organization's financial accounts. That is the allegation raised by Michael Pritchett, chair of BAFTA's membership council, at the British Academy's annual general meeting on Monday — and first reported by The Guardian on Wednesday.

The tickets were not trivial. Premium seats to the BAFTA Film Awards carried a face value of up to £2,000 ($2,660), and trustees were permitted to bring guests under an arrangement reportedly in place for as long as two decades.

What exactly is alleged?

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts operates as a registered charity. Its governing rules prohibit trustees from receiving remuneration or other benefits from the organization. Pritchett argues the complimentary seats conflict with those rules outright.

He commissioned his own legal advice. That advice, he said, suggested trustees who approved BAFTA's accounts may have committed offenses under the Charities Act and the Companies Act.

The disclosure problem is the sharpest part. BAFTA's 2024 and 2025 accounts stated that trustees received no remuneration for their services, and the charity's public register reported no payments or benefits. Free tickets worth thousands of pounds sit awkwardly beside those declarations.

How far back does the tax question go?

Pritchett also questioned whether the complimentary tickets should have been taxed dating back to 2016, potentially leaving BAFTA liable for unpaid National Insurance contributions (the U.K.'s payroll tax funding state benefits). He called for three remedies:

• Trustees repay any money owed
• Outstanding taxes be settled
• Financial accounts be corrected if necessary

He also criticized a senior BAFTA executive for declining to provide records identifying which trustees had actually received a complimentary ticket. The transparency question, one suspects, is the one that stings.

What does BAFTA say?

BAFTA discontinued the guest-ticket policy in 2025, following a recommendation from its governance committee, and has since launched an independent review into the long-running arrangement.

Outgoing chair Sara Putt said the organization had already taken steps to address the concerns. She also pushed back on Pritchett's legal advice, noting it was based on limited information, while BAFTA's own legal advisers had access to a more complete account of the circumstances.

A BAFTA spokesperson told Variety: "Trustees of BAFTA are invited to attend events in a working capacity, representing the Academy in an ambassadorial role, and prior to 2025 they could also bring a 'plus one' guest to accompany them." The spokesperson added: "In 2025 BAFTA decided to review its guest tickets arrangements and discontinued the long-standing custom and practice of trustees inviting a plus one. The Board has since established an independent review group to consider the historic guest ticket arrangement – the review is underway."

The framing matters here. BAFTA's position is that trustees attend ceremonies as working ambassadors, not beneficiaries — roughly the difference between a boardroom seat and a free night out.

What happens next?

No legal violations have been formally established. The independent review group now holds the file, and its findings will determine whether two decades of plus-ones were a courtesy, a liability, or both.