Uber should be regulated like a taxi company

One of the hotbeds of antitrust litigation with investigations commenced in almost all the mature jurisdictions is the regulation of taxi aggregator services. The Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) has previously acknowledged the nascent nature of the relevant market in such cases and has refused to interfere in these markets. However, since the ruling from the European Court of Justice which observed that Uber should be treated like a transportation company has the potential to shift the nature of such markets as the drivers on the Uber platform would now be seen as the employees of Uber. The CCI’s investigation into the surge pricing of such aggregator based companies is important because the same may be premised on the fact that these companies have the potential to control the number of drivers that are active on the platform at any given time and therefore, surge pricing would fall foul of the Competition Act, 2002. However, there is no clarity as to how The CCI would proceed with this investigation but the same definitely marks a shift from The CCI’s previous approach of non-interference.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/20/technology/uber-taxi-company-europe/index.html

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/ola-uber-under-the-competition-commission-lens-over-surge-pricing-2476087.html