Uber and VTC ('Vehicules de Tourisme avec Chauffeur' - Tourism Vehicles with Driver) drivers protest against the French government, in Paris, France, 3 February 2016. Photo by Etienne Laurent/EPA
A French court condemned ride-hailing service Uberand two of its executives to pay hefty fines for running a transport service using non-professional drivers.The Paris criminal court ordered US-based Uber to pay 800,000 euros ($900,000), half of it suspended, and imposed smaller fines on Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, head of Europe, Middle East and Africa for Uber, and Thibaud Simphal, the company's general manager for France, guilty of deceptive commercial practices and being accomplices in operating an illegal transportation service.The case concerned the low-cost Uber POP service, which connected users via a smartphone app with non-professional drivers using their own cars. Uber has since shut down the service after the French government banned it under pressure from licensed taxi drivers.Gore-Coty was fined 30,000 euros ($34,000) and Simphal 20,000 ($22,000) euros, in each case half of the fine was suspended.The court did not follow the prosecutor's recommendation that they be banned from running a company in France. They had faced a possible maximum sentence of five years in jail and a 1.5 million euro ($1.7 million) fine.Uber POP has been declared illegal by courts in Italy, Spain and Germany, while appeals are pending in Belgium and the Netherlands.Uber's problems in Europe have led it to shift its focus to its service staffed by professional drivers in black sedans, which has grown rapidly in France and now employs about 10,000 drivers.The European Commission, Europe's top business regulator, said this month that EU member states should only ban "sharing economy" services like Uber and Airbnb as a last resort.
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