Taxi Driver Online

Uber spared from London ban despite 'historical failings'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54322579

Uber has secured its right to continue operating in London after a judge upheld its appeal against Transport for London (TfL).

The ride-hailing giant has been granted a new licence to work in the capital, nearly a year after TfL rejected its application over safety concerns.

It ends uncertainty for the 45,000 drivers who use the taxi app in London.

Westminster Magistrates' Court said Uber was now a "fit and proper" operator "despite historical failings".

One of the main concerns raised by TfL was a flaw in Uber's system that allowed unauthorised people to upload their photographs to legitimate drivers' accounts, which then allowed them to pick up passengers.

Westminster Magistrates' Court heard that 24 drivers shared their accounts with 20 others which led to 14,788 rides.

Uber's regional general manager for Northern and Eastern Europe, Jamie Heywood, said: "It was not what we would do now. It was inadequate, we could have done better."

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said TfL was "absolutely right" not to renew Uber licence last year but acknowledged the company had "made improvements".

However, he added: "I can assure Londoners that TfL will continue to closely monitor Uber and will not hesitate to take swift action should they fail to meet the strict standards required to protect passengers."

Deputy chief magistrate Tan Ikram said he took Uber's "track-record of regulation breaches" into account but said it had made efforts to address failings and had improved standards.

"Despite their historical failings, I find them, now, to be a fit and proper person to hold a London PHV [private hire vehicle] operator's licence," he said.

The judge said Uber "does not have a perfect record but it has been an improving picture".

"The test as to whether [Uber] are a 'fit and proper person' does not require perfection. I am satisfied that they are doing what a reasonable business in their sector could be expected to do, perhaps even more."

The new licence will run for 18 months and comes with a number of conditions, allowing TfL to closely monitor Uber's adherence to the regulations.

Uber's Mr Heywood said: "This decision is a recognition of Uber's commitment to safety and we will continue to work constructively with TfL."

Analysis by Tom Burridge, Transport Correspondent

With 45,000 drivers on its books in London, Uber is a force to be reckoned with. But the body in charge of licensing in London has gone out of its way to take Uber on.

Transport for London (TfL) did manage to draw attention to a previous flaw in Uber's system which allowed unauthorised drivers to ferry people around. TfL piled on the pressure and, according to a judge, Uber's safety record has improved.

But when it refused to renew Uber's license, TfL knew that a judge would have the ultimate call. And at no point did anyone have to tell Uber's users in London that they couldn't order a cab.

Talking tough on Uber is one thing. But banishing it from a key European capital would carry significant consequences.

TfL originally refused to renew Uber's licence in September 2017. The company then won a 15-month licence by a judge in June 2018 after taking the case to court.

Uber was granted a two-month extension to its licence in September last year, but in November TfL decided not to grant it a new licence. At the time, TfL said it had "identified a pattern of failures by the company including several breaches that placed passengers and their safety at risk".

Uber appealed against the decision and was allowed to keep operating throughout the process.

Business campaign group London First said Monday's decision was "good news for millions of Londoners and visitors who rely on Uber to get around the capital".

However, the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association said it was a "disaster for London".

"Uber has demonstrated time and time again that it simply can't be trusted to put the safety of Londoners, its drivers and other road users above profit," it said. "Sadly, it seems that Uber is too big to regulate effectively but too big to fail."

Workers' rights

Uber is still awaiting a separate UK court ruling over whether its drivers should be classed as workers or self-employed.

The case, brought by two former drivers, could see Uber forced to compensate drivers across the UK for missed holiday pay, paid rest breaks and the national minimum wage.

Uber, however, says the "vast majority" of its drivers like being freelance.

The courts ruled in favour of the drivers in 2016 and Uber lost an appeal in 2018. A judgement on the firm's final appeal to the Supreme Court is expected soon.

The Oxford dictionary defines 'historical as;

of or concerning history or past events.
"historical evidence"
belonging to the past.
"famous historical figures"

Uber's failings are recent, in no way are they historical.

Would a driver be allowed to work despite having recent failings that have put 1000s of members of the public at risk?

I very much doubt it.

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IDFIMH

I suspect that by 'historical' the magistrate just meant that they've taken steps to rectify something that's now in the past.

And interesting what he said about 'perfection' not being required - and I suspect that's particularly so with regard to Uber's size - with 40,000 drivers, things will never be perfect, systems will always need improving, and drivers will always misbehave.

By the way, although 'historically' I beat you to it by a few minutes, feel free to delete my duplicate thread

Oh, I see you seem to have merged the threads

Reminds me of that time I thought I'd totally lost my marbles

Some more interesting comments from another article. Looks like the deputy chief magistrate looking at Uber in the context of its size and similar issues in the rest of the industry:

I do not believe that a decision such as this gives any member of the the public confidence that this is a safe operation, all of us in the trade know that historical evidence is taken into account when applying for our licenses and will lose our license under certain circumstances. The new guidance recently issued to L/As governing applications for licenses surely must be kicked into touch due to this decision.
Discrimination jumps to mind if it is not.

Has this just opened the door for undesirables to be granted licenses.

Oh c'mon it's not as if we didn't know this was going to be the result!

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

It's only the magistrates' court. If TfL lawyers can find an error in law, they will go straight to an appeal to a higher court I would think.

Could TFL ban apps and make them work from a proper office?? they could even say no manned office no licence

So uber would rent a pokey little room somewhere and have someone sitting at a desk 9 to 5 !

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Didn't TfL actually specify that already, or at least a proper contact telephone number?

Chances of apps being banned virtually zero, and of course hundreds of firms up and down the land now using them

No those conditions are only required for operators that have lost their license twice in the last 5 years.

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IDFIMH

If TfL's lawyers had any bollocks they wouldn't have thrown in the towel before the hearing even started.

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IDFIMH

But they do have manned offices.

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IDFIMH

Interesting comments from the QC representing the LTDA at the hearing. Not overly complimentary to TfL and their officials.

IMO absolutely bang on.

https://licensing-lawyer.co.uk/uber-tfl/

Uber TfL Appeal

By Gerald Gouriet

UBER LONDON LIMITED v TRANSPORT FOR LONDON

The Decision

Uber has won its appeal against Transport for London’s refusal to renew its London PHV operator’s licence. The Deputy Senior District Judge, sitting at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, decided that Uber London Limited is a fit and proper person to hold such a licence.

The court heard unchallenged evidence of a catalogue of breaches of licence conditions and regulations, seriously compromising public safety, committed by Uber within the 15-month term of a probationary licence granted to it on appeal in 2017. The essential finding by the judge was that Uber had remedied the failings which had given rise to the breaches: he said “Despite their historical failings, I find them, now, to be a fit and proper person to hold a PHV licence.” In an important paragraph of his judgment (#45), he said:

“I observe that the ‘fit and proper person’ test is not a test of perfection. It is ‘an expression directed to ensuring that an applicant for permission to do something has the personal qualities and professional qualifications reasonably required of a person doing whatever it is that the applicant seeks permission to do’. A holistic view is required.”

There is no question that his conclusion was one which the judge was entitled to reach on the evidence before him. What is unusual about this appeal, however, is that the respondent (Transport for London) did not invite him to conclude otherwise. At no point did TfL ask the judge to uphold its decision to refuse to renew Uber’s licence. Instead, TfL asked him to decide for himself whether Uber, at the date of the appeal and on the evidence before him, was a fit and proper person. That, we suggest, is a significant departure from the guidance given by the courts in the Hope and Glory litigation ([2009] EWHC 1996 (Admin), [2011] EWCA Civ 341). The task of the court on appeal is to determine whether the decision below is wrong: the task is not to make the decision afresh – yet that is precisely what TfL invited the judge to do. Time and again, following the correct approach ratified by the Court of Appeal in Hope and Glory, judges will hold that a decision is not ‘wrong’ – even if they would have decided the matter differently themselves – because the decision appealed against falls within the range of legitimate decision-making. In our experience, either a licensing authority argues that its decision is right and defends the appeal, or it concedes that in light of new evidence the decision is no longer sustainable, and the appeal is allowed by consent. For a licensing authority to take neither one position nor the other, and throw the thing to the court to decide for itself, is in our opinion to abandon its responsibilities as regulator. It is something we have not encountered other than in the two Uber licensing appeals.

LTDA submissions

The LTDA was given limited permission to participate in each of Uber’s licensing appeals. In the current appeal, the LTDA suggested that for several months Uber had covered up its discovery of a serious flaw in the Uber App which allowed drivers to change their profile photograph to that of another person, who was then able to undertake Uber bookings. By the date of TfL’s decision on 25 November 2019, some 13,850 such bookings had been identified – all of them uninsured, all of them undertaken by drivers who had been dismissed by ULL, some of them undertaken by drivers whose licences had been revoked by TfL. The LTDA set out its case for ‘cover-up’ in written submissions, which can be read in full here. The judge was not persuaded, however: at paragraph 30 of his decision he says “I have carefully considered the evidence in the context of what [counsel] argues. I do not, however, agree with his interpretation and do not draw the inference that the evidence suggests attempted concealment.” It is perhaps regrettable that TfL once again fought shy of assisting the court with a view of its own, one way or the other. When the judge asked what TfL’s position was on the ‘cover up’ issue, counsel replied that TfL’s sole witness had not reached any conclusion.

Déjà vu

This appeal marks the second occasion, in a little over two years, in which Uber has been able to persuade a court that between TfL’s refusal to renew its licence and the appeal hearing it has put right the many wrongs that led to TfL’s decision. The judge in the 2018 appeal said: “The question for this court is whether ULL can be trusted when it says it has changed and whether it will maintain the changes when these proceedings drop away”. Leading counsel for TfL in the latest appeal said much the same thing: she said that the “crucial question” was whether Uber could be trusted to break its cycle of “remorse and reform”.

Mending what has been broken, and undertaking not to do the same again, has proved a winning formula for Uber. There cannot be many licensees whose repeated breaches of conditions and regulations are of so little consequence.

Gerald Gouriet QC. & Charles Holland

Francis Taylor Building

Inner Temple

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IDFIMH