UBER UPDATE
LONDON BLACK CABBIES AND UBER FACE OFF IN HIGH-STAKES £340 MILLION HIGH COURT BATTLE
Uber is locked in a fierce legal showdown at the High Court as a massive £340m group lawsuit brought by 13,000 London black cab drivers heads to trial. The legal action, which also includes collapsed PH operators Kabbee and Iride, alleges that Uber unlawfully manipulated its business model and misled TfL to secure its operating licence between May 2012 and March 2018, devastating the livelihoods of traditional taxi drivers. If the court rules in favour of the cabbies, drivers could receive roughly £25,000 each in compensation. However, rather than immediately defending itself against the fraud allegations, Uber’s legal team has launched a procedural counter-
attack aimed at killing the lawsuit before the core evidence is even heard. In preliminary hearings, Uber argued that the entire case is fundamentally “time-barred’ under the UK’s Limitation Act, which requires civil claims to be brought within a strict six-year window. Because the drivers formally sued in mid-2024 for events that concluded in 2018, Uber asserts the deadline has long passed. Uber’s lawyers claim that cabbies had ample notice to sue years ago, pointing out that TfL publicly detailed Uber’s alleged rule- breaking when it temporarily refused to renew its licence in 2017. Uber also pointed to documents showing that the drivers’ law firm, Mishcon de Reya, was already gath-
ering information for a potential class-action lawsuit at that time. Lawyers representing the black cab drivers argue that the six-year clock should be paused because Uber deliberately concealed the true nature of how its smartphone dispatch app worked. They assert that Uber’s operational deceit was only fully unravelled in late June 2018 during a Chief Magistrate’s appeal hearing, placing their 2024 filing within the legal time limit. Presiding judge Mrs Justice O’Farrell has already issued a rare costs budgeting order to ensure the thousands of individual cab drivers have clear visibility regarding their financial exposure to legal fees as they fight Uber’s vast corporate war chest.
PHTM AUGUST 2026
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