Paris Court of Appeal compensates taxis for economic loss

More specifically, no fewer than 149 taxi drivers considered that they had been the victims of unfair competition practices put in place by UBER FRANCE as part of the roll-out of the “UberPop” service in 2014 and 2015, which enabled ordinary private individuals – neither taxi drivers nor VTCs – to offer expensive journeys to private individuals using their private vehicles via an app.

While UBER FRANCE claimed that the appellants had not suffered any loss of turnover, and consequently considered that they had not proved that they had suffered any economic loss, the Paris Court of Appeal noted that :

• Unfair practices necessarily imply the existence of a loss resulting from the wrongful procedures used, in particular unlawful practices, which are facts that give rise to a commercial disturbance;
• It is not disputed that UBERPOP drivers had operating expenses of no more than 16.5% of their turnover – limited to fuel and vehicle maintenance – whereas taxi drivers had expenses of approximately 70% of their turnover; and
• The detrimental effects on taxi drivers resulted in ” a breach of equality between competitors on the market for the transport of private individuals for payment“, enabling UBER FRANCE to build its business model on the basis of an ” unlawful competitive advantage “.

In these circumstances, it was appropriate to refer to the ” Cristal de Paris ” case law of 12 February 2020 (no. 17-31.614), and to calculate the savings in charges from which the UBERPOP drivers had benefited over the period in question, before passing them on in proportion to the turnover of each of the taxi drivers.

In addition to the fundamental and innovative contributions of the judgment regarding the method of calculating this type of economic loss, the judgment also provides some interesting reminders on specific points of procedure, such as the following:

• With regard to the alleged non-payment of tax stamps by the appellants, raised by UBER FRANCE, the Paris Court of Appeal points out that only the judge can raise such inadmissibility and that, since the parties filed a single statement of appeal and presented a joint defence, they had to pay a single tax stamp;
• With regard to interest in bringing an action, it also points out that a victim’s interest in bringing an action does not depend on the proof of his or her loss – which only affects his or her chances of success – just as the interest in defending the perpetrator of an illegal practice does not depend on the imputability of the practice – which only affects the “merits” of the action; and
• As regards the addition of a new head of economic loss during the appeal proceedings, it points out that such a request is perfectly admissible in that it seeks to propose an ‘alternative’ method of calculating economic loss, in response to the criticisms made by the respondent in its written submissions.

Please also read the article in Le Monde entitled “Uber ordered on appeal to pay nearly €850,000 to taxis for “unfair competition” linked to the activity of its former offering, UberPop”.