Uber to pay $178M to Australian taxi drivers

The US company, hailed as a global taxi market disruptor, has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit over putting Aussie cabbies out of work.

The class action, filed in 2019 by Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, represented over 8,000 taxi and hire car owners and drivers.

It was alleged that Uber’s aggressive move into the country left many without income.

The San Francisco-based Uber agreed to pay A$271.8 million ($178.3 million), making the case one of the largest settlements in Australia’s history, according to abc.net.eu.

The law firms’ five years of effort will be rewarded with a payment of between $20 million and $23 million.

Meanwhile, Uber issued a statement saying that when the company entered the Australian market, ridesharing regulations “did not exist anywhere in the world, let alone Australia.”

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

Recently, Uber beat a similar case in France, where 2,500 taxi drivers sued the company for €455 million ($495.4 million). However, a Paris commercial court ruled that the company competed fairly.