Uber decides to pay $178 million to Aussie taxi drivers

It’s the fifth-largest class action settlement in Australia’s history and comes five years after its launch

Global rideshare giant Uber will pay 272 million Australian dollars ($178 million) to settle a long-running dispute with Australian taxi and hire car drivers who lost out when the company entered the Australian market.

A class action against Uber was expected to go to trial in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Monday. However, Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, representing 8,000 taxi and hire car drivers, said the case would be dropped because Uber agreed to the financial settlement.

Maurice Blackburn’s principal lawyer, Michael Donelly, said drivers and car owners suffered financial losses because of Uber’s aggressive entry into the market in 2012. The company consistently attempted to avoid compensating them.

“On the courtroom steps and after years of refusing to do the right thing by those we say they harmed, Uber has blinked, and thousands of everyday Australians joined together to stare down a global giant,” he said.

An Uber statement described the complaints of the taxi industry as “legacy issues.” It said rideshare regulations did not exist worldwide when the company started over a decade ago.

The statement said, “The rise of ridesharing has grown Australia’s overall point-to-point transport industry, bringing with it greater choice and improved experiences for consumers, as well as new earnings opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Australian workers.”

“Since 2018, Uber has made significant contributions to various state-level taxi compensation schemes, and with today’s proposed settlement, we have put these legacy issues firmly in the past.”

It’s the fifth-largest class action settlement in Australia’s history and comes five years after its launch.

Source: AP

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