Photo/Illutration Tokyo Olympic tickets (Provided by the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee)

Buyers of tickets for events and ceremonies at the Tokyo Olympics or Paralympics will likely not receive refunds if the Games are canceled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, organizing committee sources said.

They pointed to a provision in the Terms and Conditions for purchasing the tickets, which states “Tokyo 2020 shall not be liable for any failure to perform any obligation under the Terms and Conditions to the extent that the failure is caused by a Force Majeure.”

The Terms and Conditions also define what constitutes force majeure: “any cause beyond Tokyo 2020’s reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of God, war, insurrection, riot, civil disturbance, acts of terrorism, fire, explosion, flood, theft, malicious damage, strike, lockout, weather, third party injunction, national defense requirements, public health emergency, and acts or regulations of national or local governments.”

The committee sources said if the coronavirus outbreak leads to a cancellation of the Games, the “public health emergency” clause would apply.

The organizing committee has so far sold 5.08 million tickets to Olympic events and 1.65 million tickets to Paralympic events.

The top price for an Olympic ticket is 300,000 yen ($2,780) for an “A” seat for the Opening Ceremony. The top price for an actual sporting event is 130,000 yen for an “A” seat for track and field.

The organizing committee’s latest budget forecasts total ticket revenues of about 90 billion yen.

The English version of the Terms and Conditions can be read at: (https://ticket.tokyo2020.org/Home/TicketTerm).