The European Court of Justice has decided not to deal with the case of US company Uber and its activity in Belgium, but it will soon be ruling on a new type of service that allows individuals to set up as taxi drivers with their own vehicle in two separate cases, one in Spain and one in France.
In a ruling published on Friday 4 November, the European Court of Justice says it cannot rule on questions submitted by a Belgian judge who badly formulated a request for a preliminary ruling (Case C-526/15). The judge wanted to know whether drivers working via Uber had to have the same authorisation as laid down in Belgian law for traditional taxi-drivers, when they are only paid for the costs they genuinely face. Belgian law requires authorisation only for taxi transport provided "against remuneration", and the Court says this means that the question was wrongly formulated by the Belgian judge.
This is a surprising error and perhaps indicates the problems faced by public authorities and the justice system when it comes to understanding this new type of service and its legal nature. Where it is possible for it to operate (it is partially banned in France, Germany and Belgium), Uber also provides the opportunity for drivers using its application to charge clients fees higher than the real costs for the journey, and therefore "against remuneration", in a similar way to traditional taxis.
The Court was surprised that the Belgian judge talked about car-sharing while describing the service provided by Uber as journeys carried out by a driver whose destination is decided solely by the passenger because car-sharing should really be defined as the same private car being used by several people for the same journey in order to reduce traffic and share transport costs, says the Court of Justice.
While the question raised by the Belgian judge is ruled "clearly inadmissible", that does not go for questions submitted by a Spanish court in Case C-434/15 and a French court in Case C-320/16. In both cases, the Court will have the opportunity to decide on the legal nature in EU law of the service provided by Uber, and whether it is transport, a service provided using an online intermediary or a computer company’s service. The answer to this question is likely to be decisive for Uber’s future in Europe. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)