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by Mick the Ram
Uber, the San Francisco-based transport service, has agreed to pay A$271.8m ($178.3m/£140m) to settle a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Australia’s Victoria state.
Maurice Blackburn Lawyers filed the class action on behalf of over 8,000 taxi and hire car owners and drivers.
The case alleged that they lost huge amounts of income when the ride-hailing giant “aggressively” moved their business into the country.
Since its inception, Uber has faced protests by taxi drivers in cities all around the world. However, in December 2023, it had a successful outcome in a lawsuit brought against it by 2,500 taxi drivers in France, so they will be hugely disappointed with this result.
Since it was founded in March 2009 by two friends, it has grown into a global phenomenon operating in around 70 countries and more than 10,000 cities.
No more excuses
Maurice Blackburn principal lawyer, Michael Donelly, said that this case succeeded where so many others had failed because the previous ones were brought against governments. “What our group members asked for was not another set of excuses, but an outcome and today we have delivered it for them.”
He added that Uber had fought tooth and nail at every point along the way, and had “acted like pirates”.
No French repeat
The company would have been confident of winning after their success in France when a Paris commercial court ruled that they had not committed acts of unfair competition. On that occasion they stood to lose a massive €455m ($495.4m/ £389m).
In a statement released by Uber, a spokesperson insisted that they had been making significant contributions into various state-level taxi compensation schemes since 2018. They are responsible for redefining people’s viewpoint in relation to personal transportation services.
Simple idea grows to enormous proportions
It was an idea initially conceived by two San Francisco-based friends – Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, as a type of timeshare limo service which could be ordered via an app.
The ease of use and simplicity of the concept saw it rise rapidly in popularity and it has since grown to enormous proportions with its services in taxi hailing, food delivery through Uber Eats, package delivery, and freight transport.
Will be seen as justice by taxi drivers
They employ over 32,800 worldwide, and have an ever-growing network of drivers and riders. Their business model focuses on dynamic pricing and local supply and demand chains, making it a giant in the transportation sector.
Nevertheless, this obviously is in conflict to regular taxis, hence the Australian lawsuit and right now there are several thousand drivers breathing and sleeping considerably easier, knowing they are to benefit from a financial windfall.
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