EU Court Favors France's Ban of UberPOP Without Notifying Brussels

The EU’s top court has struck a major blow at the San Francisco-based company, having banned the UberPOP service that links unlicensed drivers with customers via an app from operating in France.

"Member States may prohibit and punish, as a matter of criminal law, the illegal exercise of transport activities in the context of the UberPop service, without notifying the Commission in advance of the draft legislation," the court ruled.

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Uber has argued that Paris should have received European Commission’s approval for the new legislation, insisting that it should be classified as an “information society service” rather than a taxi company, which was rejected by the judges.

In 2015, the French government banned the UberPOP service as it broke a 2014 law prohibiting taxi companies from using unlicensed drivers carrying fewer than 10 passengers; Uber appealed the decision, claiming that France’s failure to notify the commission should void the ban. The matter was referred to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which ruled that Uber was not an information society service.

In December 2017, EU judges determined that Uber was a transport company, not an information platform, in a similar case in Spain.