The ride-sharing app Uber suffered a severe blow on Monday as its business model was declared illegal by a UK court. The Superior Court judges rejected the company's appeal, which claimed that they act as a reservation agent for drivers.
When Uber's defense is rejected, the court declares that all shared transportation services, including Uber; they have to take direct legal responsibility for the trips of their vehicles that have happened in London and were booked through their platforms.
Uber's activity is declared illegal and unfair competition
The UK court found that a licensed operator who accepts a booking from a passenger is under a contractual obligation to that passenger to perform the journey that is the subject of the booking. Uber’s legal team argued that there was a difference between “accepting” a booking and actually transporting a passenger, but that was not enough for the court.
The decision could see that the more than 1.800 Uber drivers in the United Kingdom would change their situation and the legal responsibility for incidents in their cars would not fall directly on them. The shared vehicle drivers union ADCU celebrated the result. They argued that the agreement had protected the operators from all legal liability and the payment of taxes, which fell on the workers.
This ruling of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom of February determines that Uber drivers must be classified as workers, and not as self-employed. All London private rental operators will be affected by this decision, and must comply with the Supreme Court's verdict in its entirety, so it is not only Uber who will be affected, but any other web platform that contacts drivers and passengers, and payments are made through the platform.
Source: Euronews
