To avoid legal proceedings, the US driving service provider Uber is paying Australian taxi drivers several million. Negotiations on the class action lawsuit were originally scheduled to begin today.
To settle a lawsuit filed by Australian taxi drivers, the passenger transport service Uber has paid millions. Uber agreed to pay 272 million Australian dollars (164 million euros) to Australian taxi drivers and rental car owners. They accused the ride-hailing service of losing revenue when Uber began expanding into Australia in 2012.
The settlement that has now been concluded apparently came about just hours before the hearing – this Monday, the Supreme Court of the state of Victoria was supposed to hear a class action lawsuit against Uber. The lawsuit will be dropped, said the law firm Maurice Blackburn, which represents the taxi drivers.
Complaints are “legacy issues”
The class action lawsuit was filed in the Victorian Supreme Court in 2019 on behalf of more than 8,000 taxi and rental car owners and drivers. They accused Uber of violating laws requiring licenses for taxis and rental cars.
Uber had said it never knowingly violated the law. The company described the taxi industry’s complaints as “legacy issues.” When the company was founded, there were no regulations for ride-sharing anywhere in the world.
Millionaire Comparison
“Uber has fought tooth and nail at every point of the journey,” Maurice Blackburn director Michael Donnelly said in a statement: “After years of refusing to do the right thing for those we say have harmed them Uber blinked.”
The settlement between Uber and the taxi drivers is the fifth largest in Australian history, Maurice Blackburn Lawyers said in a statement. Former MP and taxi driver Rod Barton, a member of the class action lawsuit, sees the settlement as confirming the suspicion that Uber knowingly circumvented the country’s taxi licensing rules: “They knew full well that they had to have their drivers and their vehicles fully licensed,” said Barton of the Australian Broadcasting Corp.