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11 Apr 2018 12:01pm

Uber has to abide by French transport laws: EU top court

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Luxembourg: In a decision which may have wide ramification for technology company’s operating in European Union (EU) ,a top court here in Luxembourg ruled that French authorities are well within their rights to bring criminal proceedings against local managers of ride-hailing app Uber [UBER.UL] for running an illegal taxi service.

The case is about French authorities levying criminal charges against unlicensed drivers used by Uber to run its service UberPOP in France. This was contested by Uber that since France is part of EU, it has to notify EU before it took action like this against the technology driven ride sharing App.The EU court ruled that Uber is running a transport service and the provision for applying this rule or law will not apply in this case.

After the ruling Uber will have to stop using unlicensed drivers for running services in France but its service with licensed drivers will continue as before. “Member states may prohibit and punish, as a matter of criminal law, the illegal exercise of transport activities in the context of the UberPOP service, without notifying the Commission in advance of the draft legislation,” the ECJ said in a statement.

Commenting on the verdict, a spokeswoman for Uber said, “This case is about whether a French law from 2014 should have been pre-notified to the European Commission and related to peer-to-peer services which we stopped in 2015. As our new CEO has said, it is appropriate to regulate services such as Uber and so we will continue the dialogue with cities across Europe”.

Uber since its entry in Europe in 2011 has faced severe back lash from traditional taxi service providers. Such was the opposition that it was forced to withdraw services from Denmark and Hungary altogether and voluntarily suspended services in cities of some other countries.  

Last year, London cancelled Uber’s right to operate in the city which has been appealed against by the company.


Tagged: Uber EU France
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