A Paris court smacked Uber with a $1.1 million fine for illegally operating UberPOP from February 2014 to July 2015.
Two executives were compelled to testify and will also face fines.
The hefty fine is another step in Uber’s battle with cities over its “right to operate” without specially licensed drivers. In December 2014, taxi drivers blocked major highways in Paris in protest of the double standard.
The fracas started the same way many anti-Uber movements start—with a group of taxi drivers protesting Uber’s ability to employ drivers who don’t have professional licenses.
Under French law—as of 2015—chauffeurs must possess a professional license. Despite that, UberPOP continued to operate while an appeals court reviewed the law.
Uber France CEO Thibaud Simphal and Uber Europe GM Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty were arrested last summer and accused of running an illegal taxi company. Both were convicted this month, found guilty of deceptive commercial practices and operating an illegal transportation service.
They’ll pay fines of €30,000 and €20,000, respectively, but they’re expected to avoid any prison time.
“We stopped UberPop last summer and we are still disappointed by this judgment,” a French spokesman told Bloomberg. “The European Commission has just published guidelines that support such services.”
An Uber spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that the company “is disappointed” by the verdict and will appeal.
Here’s more the WSJ:
The verdict is a blow for the San Francisco company in the broader legal war between Silicon Valley firms and governments world-wide about how—and whether—to regulate the digital economy. It represents one of Uber’s highest profile legal defeats in a market it at one time believed was so promising that it chose Paris for its first overseas expansion.
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