The Paris Court of Appeal on Wednesday ordered Uber France to compensate 149 taxi drivers with nearly 850,000 euros in total, facing acts of “unfair competition” related to the activity of its former Uberpop offer.
The UberPop offer, which the American company developed in France between February 2014 and July 2015, allowed customers to connect with people behind the wheel of their personal vehicle. The latter could thus carry out “an additional paid activity” without having to “comply with the rules then in force for the private transportation of people in exchange for a fee,” the appeal court recalled in a statement.
“The Court considered that the UberPop offer, through the Uber mobile application (…), characterizes acts of unfair competition with respect to taxi drivers who respect the rules for the same activity,” the statement indicates. The “commercial disruption caused by the illicit UberPop service resulted in a breakdown of equality between competitors (…) allowing the Uber group (…) to build its economic development model based on an illicit competitive advantage by evading regulations “, detailed the court of appeal.
“You shouldn’t give up”
In its ruling, which AFP was able to consult, the court thus orders Uber France to pay each of the 149 plaintiffs 1,500 euros in compensation for their non-material damage, compared to 500 euros in the first instance in November 2021. Although they had not obtained anything in the first instance, the 149 taxis will also be compensated on a case-by-case basis for their economic damages, with amounts that will range between about 1,400 euros and more than 6,000 euros.
“It is the first time that the damage caused by taxis has been fully repaired in a case,” and justice is normally content with compensating only moral damage, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Jonathan Bellaiche, told AFP, citing the total amount of compensation in “almost 850,000 euros”.
“It means that when we carry out the procedures we will get justice,” he added, “in the face of a giant like Uber, we must not give up.” The lawyer believes that the platform has implemented numerous legal strategies “to make people give up”, prolonging a procedure that began in 2017. The 149 taxis “didn’t believe it anymore,” said Me Bellaiche, but “today they are happy and grateful to justice.
The UberPop offer was active until the day after the police arrest of two Uber France executives. They were convicted in January 2022, like Uber France, for deceptive commercial practices and complicity in the illegal exercise of taxi activity.
Source: BFM TV
