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Uber ordered to pay taxi drivers damages in France

A French court on Friday ordered ride-hailing service Uber to pay damages to taxi drivers whose business suffered from unlicensed competitors.

Uber ordered to pay taxi drivers damages in France
Photo: Thomas SAMSON / AFP.

Uber France will have to pay €180,000 to 910 taxi drivers and their federation who brought a civil case against Uber for unfair competition, the court ruled.

The case centred on the activities in 2014 and 2015 of UberPop, a platform that brought together clients and unlicensed drivers.

The business, marketed as ride-sharing, sparked the ire of traditional taxi drivers who felt the new service was threatening their livelihoods with cheap fares.

They notably argued that non-professional drivers did not have to pay for training, or acquire a taxi licence which in Paris can cost more than €100,000, allowing them to undercut taxis.

Uber France had already in December 2015 lost its appeal against a guilty verdict by a criminal court for misleading commercial practices, and was ordered to pay a fine of 150,000 euros.

In its civil case decision Friday, the court found that passing off untrained drivers as professionals hurt the image and the reputation of
licensed taxi drivers.

The damages payout works out at €192 for each of the 910 drivers, and €5,000 for the Paris taxi drivers’ federation.

Uber on Friday said that it has not been using unlicensed drivers in France since 2015, and that drivers now had to take the same tests as licensed taxi drivers.

“This is a good decision which will stop other platforms from providing illegal transport,” taxi federation president Christophe Jacopin said of the verdict.

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BUSINESS

France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.

France's EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.

Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.

EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.

The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.

EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.

“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.

EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.

That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.

The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.

Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.

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