I can't view that without logging in, Vikkiz. What's your username and password for the Financial Times?
I don't know how I seen it as I'm not a subscriber either.
The European Court of Justice has dealt another legal blow to Uber, just a few months after the Luxembourg court ruled that the ride-hailing app should be regulated like a traditional taxi company.
Judges at the EU’s highest court on Tuesday ruled that the French government was within its rights to pass a criminal law in 2014 banning some illegal transport services without first notifying the European Commission of its plans. Tech companies are granted an additional layer of protection from national legislation in the EU with draft laws affecting them needing to be approved by Brussels.
Uber had challenged France’s bypassing of the notification system after it was taken to court by a taxi driver in Lille for running its UberPop service that used unlicensed drivers. Uber was fined €800,000 under the law in 2016 after two of its executives were found to have run an illegal service.
The ECJ said the EU’s 28 member states were allowed to “prohibit and punish the illegal exercise of a transport activity such as UberPop without having to notify the commission in advance of the draft legislation laying down criminal penalties for the exercise of such an activity”. Campaigners for digital companies said the ruling threatens to reduce the regulatory protection that tech companies have in the EU.
The decision is the latest against Uber in Europe. In December the ECJ ruled that Uber should be classified as a taxi service, rather than a purely digital intermediation service, which opened it up to tougher transport national legislation in the EU. Uber has been under intense global scrutiny after a series of crises, including hiding details of a mass data breach from regulators, the alleged use of spy tactics and its failure to report sex attacks by its drivers. Travis Kalanick quit as chief executive last year and was replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi.
In London, Uber has appealed against a decision by the regulator to block the renewal of its licence to operate in the capital. The city’s transport authority plans to overhaul regulations for taxis, in a move designed to increase oversight of ride-hailing companies such as Uber.
The company said in a response to the French decision that the ruling would have little impact on its operations; the UberPop peer-to-peer service was suspended in 2015. The company now works only with licensed drivers in most of the EU. “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 said. Under EU law, governments wanting to regulate companies offering services in the digital economy have to first notify Brussels of their draft laws to ensure they comply with the rules of the single market. In its ruling the ECJ said national EU laws regulating Uber’s operations did not need to be scrutinised by the European Commission because Uber was a transport company rather than an “information society service”. “It follows that the French authorities were not required to notify the commission in advance of the draft criminal legislation in question,” said the ECJ. Damien Geradin, a partner at Euclid Law in Brussels, said the court’s decision was a blow for how tech companies are regulated in the EU. “It means that the European Commission will have limited power to prevent the adoption of national restrictive provisions affecting all sorts of digital platforms, which will impact the development of the digital sector as a whole,” said Mr Geradin.
