EU Court: Member States may ban UberPop without notifying the Commission

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Member States of the European Union that decide to ban and sanction an illegal transport activity such as UberPop can do so without prior notice to the European Commission.

In substantiating its ruling, the Court of Justice refers to an earlier judgment of December last year, which ruled that the UberPop service offered in Spain must be regarded as a transport service and cannot be regarded as an ‘information society service’. ‘. As a result, the obligation to report the intention to prohibit or penalize a service is not an issue. According to the judges, the UberPop service offered in France is identical to that of Spain and the French authorities did not have to notify the Commission in advance of their draft law penalizing Uber.

The French authorities have launched criminal charges against UberPop for the fact that Uber uses unlicensed drivers in this service. Uber believes that the legal regime under which it is being prosecuted qualifies as “a technical regulation for setting technical standards and regulations relating to an information society service.” As a result, Uber believes that France needed permission from the Commission. Because this was not requested, Uber argues that the law could not be used against the company.

This concerns the underlying question of whether Uber is more than a service that connects passengers with drivers via an app. In that context, the Court ruled in its previous ruling that the app forms an integral part of Uber’s service provision, which mainly consists of the provision of transport services. That means e-commerce rules don’t apply to Uber’s services; Uber must therefore be regarded as a transport service and can therefore be regulated on the basis of transport rules.