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-434/15, Asociación Profesional Élite Taxi – Uber’s new software destroys the old order of labour
Traditionally, people wanting to be driven from A to B could hail a cab on the street. Subsequently, cabs could be hailed by telephoning for one. Now it is possible to use a smartphone to organise an ‘electronic hail’. However, if the smartphone uses Uber’s software, then the car that comes to pick them up will not be a licensed taxi. The question is: can Uber’s new software destroy the old order of labour that governs the life of a taxi-driver, a legal order characterised by the state-licensing of taxi cabs?
Continue readingCase C-340/14, Trijber – the Treaty is more than an incoming tide, it is even in the canals
Amsterdam has a system of canals. But before boats and pleasure craft can take to Amsterdam’s waters, they need a licence from the local authority. Unfortunately, the authority handed out its boat licences a while back. In this case, a Dutch company now wishes to rent out its boat for either office parties or company ‘days-out’, and unsurprisingly its application was turned down. The aggrieved company is challenging the legality of the licensing system. It alleges that since the authority’s licences are for an unlimited duration, the system is disproportionate and shows that the authority acts arbitrarily – something contrary to EU Treaty law and the EU ‘services’ Directive 2006/123/EC. The authority denies that it is doing anything wrong: issuing a limited number of licences is a proportionate response designed to limit the congestion on Amsterdam’s canals; and even if it is wrong on that point, then this is a ‘purely internal situation’ to which EU law does not apply.
Continue readingCase C-518/13, Eventech – driving a minicab through the rules governing bus lanes
London’s bus lanes can generally be used by ‘black cabs’ but not by ‘minicabs’. Do the rules underpinning that distinction: involve the use of state resources, constitute a disproportionate response in view of the policy aims of bus lanes, and threaten to affect trade between the Member States? If they do, then they could be an illegal state aid.
Continue readingCase C-328/13, Österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund – in the wake of collective agreements
Can the EU’s transfer of undertakings Directive 2001/23 be relied upon to stop workers becoming seriously worse off when a parent-company decides that the terms and conditions of its employees will no longer be governed by the collective agreement that binds the parent-company but by the collective agreement that binds a daughter-company?
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