Case C-526/15, Uber Belgium – facilitating a mobility service not a taxi service

Do occasional private car drivers who use Uber’s software and get paid to take people on journeys but who do not receive remuneration or a wage, provide a taxi service requiring a license?

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Case C-74/14, Eturas – computerised cartels and limits on price discounts

In Lithuania, a travel agency ran a computerised online travel system which offered customers various package tours. However, when it came to offering customers discounts on the price of their holiday, the computer system put a ceiling on the maximum amount of discount which a customer could be offered. It was a computerised booking system that was used by many travel agents. Is this not an example of price-fixing among members of a concerted practice and thus contrary to Article 101 TFEU?

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Case C-30/14, Ryanair – grounding a go compare an airfare website

Price-comparison websites in the EU are often lawful because the websites they take their information from are databases frequently unprotected by either copyright or the ‘sui generis’ right enshrined in the EU’s Database Directive 96/9/EC. This is true of Ryanair’s website. But Ryanair’s website is however protected by a plank of deviant Dutch ‘copyright’ law. In this case, a Dutch website that compares the price of airfares is seeking to rely on a Dutch exception to the Dutch ‘copyright’ rule, an exception that corresponds to one found in the EU’s Database Directive. The legal question has become whether the Directive applies to all databases and thus websites – even the unprotected ones – and, if so, whether the price-comparison website qualifies as a ‘lawful user’, who does not need to obtain Ryanair’s consent to use Ryanair’s website.

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