Uber has settled that suit and agreed to pay $272 million to the taxi and hire car drivers in Australia.
👉 Background: When Uber, the global transportation company launched that in Australia in 2012, it was not good news for taxi drivers. In fact, in 2019, 8,000 taxi and hire car owners filed a class action suit against Uber in Australia.
👉 What happened: Taxi and hire car drivers claimed that Uber had caused financial harm by running its UberX services in Australia illegally. This week, Uber has settled that suit and agreed to pay $272 million to the drivers.
👉 What else: The case was to compensate for lost income, and lost value in licences bought by owners of taxis and charter vehicles. This case has become the fifth-largest class action settlement in Australian legal history!
💡Eventually, regulation always catches up.
💡When Uber first launched in Sydney in 2012, it was operating outside the law. During that time, it often faced furious protests from the taxi industry.
💡In 2015, ACT was the first Australian jurisdiction to regulate ride-sharing services like UberX. NSW followed soon after, before the rest of the country did. So even if it takes a long time, regulation eventually catches up to innovation.
Sign up for Flux and join 100,000 members of the Flux family
