It has been a long battle, but Uber’s ride-hailing service uberPOP has been hit with another setback as the Frankfurt Regional Court ruled the service illegal and instituted a country-wide ban on Wednesday.
Because uberPOP connects users of the Uber app with private drivers who use their own cars, fees can be substantially lower than the normal taxi fares. The problem is that these drivers are not licensed taxi drivers, which the court ruled to be illegal.
Wednesday’s ruling does not affect Uber’s other services in Germany, uberBLACK and uberTAXI, since drivers for those services are properly licensed.
With past rulings, Uber has ignored the decisions and operated with the risk of facing fines, which after this ruling would amount to 250,000 euro ($264,825) per violation. However Uber has not stated that they would defy court orders this time around. Uber is looking to appeal the decision though.
Uber is said to also be working on developing an alternative low-cost solution that would comply with the court’s interpretation of the German laws.
