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In September last year, Transport for London (TfL) decided not to grant Uber a new license to operate in the capital, sparking jubilation from the city’s black cab drivers, and mild panic from the 600,000 Londoners who signed a petition to reverse the decision.

In a 21-page document, TfL questioned whether Uber was a ‘fit and proper’ company to be operating in London, citing deficiencies in how the company vetted drivers, and its process for passing on details of assaults and other crimes to the police, among other transgressions.


Uber immediately appealed against the decision, and has continued operating in London, pending a court hearing which will finally get underway on Monday. It could be a landmark moment – for the city’s night-time revellers and its 40,000 Uber ‘partner-drivers.'

However, few expect Uber to actually be banned from operating in the capital. In November, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan admitted that the process “could go on for a number of years”.

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Steve Garelick of the GMB union thinks the appeal may be rejected at this stage and moved up to a higher court, but that TfL will and Uber will eventually come to an agreement. “I think TfL have to be seen to be semi-sticking to their guns,” he says. “It’s whether Uber can demonstrate that they’ve now done enough to satisfy the regulator.”

It is in TfL’s interest to drag the legal wrangling out as long as possible, claims Sam Dumitriu, head of research at the Adam Smith Institute. “I don’t think TfL will ban Uber,” he says. “But the longer it goes on, the more concessions they can extract. It’s less about getting the right level of regulation, and more about bringing a tech company to heel.”


If that is TfL’s strategy, it may be working. As one of the few markets where Uber actually turns a profit, London’s regulator can affect change more easily than most.

“Uber has made a lot of effort to try and assuage some of the concerns TfL had around safety,” says Steve Kuncewicz, a technology and policy expert and partner at the law firm BLM. After a number of pre-hearings with TfL, Uber has, for example, dropped its opposition to mandatory English language tests for drivers, introduced a 24-hour support hotline, and rolled out a ‘driver profile’ feature which, in London, displays a driver’s private hire licence number.

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Last month, it applied for an 18-month licence to operate in London instead of a five year one, in an apparent attempt to demonstrate it is in a state of constant review and improvement. As a result of these, and other changes, TfL’s official list of concerns to be addressed at Monday’s hearing has been cut from 25 to just 11, Bloomberg reported in April.


Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, Uber's new boss in Europe, said in May the company had been taking a "deep look" at itself. "Over the last six to nine months we've been looking at changing a lot of things we have in the UK: the governance, bringing in external board members, changing our approach to safety and how we co-operate with the Met Police." He added he hoped the company would get its licence back.

At the same time, Uber has been on what Stefan Baskerville of the New Economics Foundation calls a “charm offensive”. The company has endured a torrid time over the past 18 months, with questions raised about its "toxic" corporate culture following a widespread sexual harassment scandal.

Founder Travis Kalanick stepped down as chief executive a few months before the TfL decision last year, and the company has tried to improve its image under his replacement Dara Khosrowshahi and (recently departed) chief brand officer Bozoma St John.

In the UK, this has included a slick PR operation, advertising campaigns highlighting new safety features in the app, and an All 4 documentary called Where To, Britain?, narrated by Dawn French.

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The outcome of the London case could set a very important precedent, says Kuncewicz, and cities such as York and Brighton have already followed London’s lead by not renewing licences – the latter having "serious concerns" about Uber's 2016 data breach. However, it is far from the biggest regulatory issue facing the company. “It’s one thing to define Uber’s relationship with a regulator, the next thing is the relationship with the driver,” says Kuncewicz.

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A series of employment tribunals, and the recommendations of the government’s Taylor Review of modern working practices, are slowly defining the differences between an employee, a worker, and a self-employed freelancer in the ‘gig economy’.

Companies such as Uber would like their drivers to be the latter, but the courts – in employment tribunals involving courier firm CitySprint, Pimlico Plumbers, and Uber itself – have tended to disagree. Uber is currently in the midst of a second appeal against a ruling that its drivers should be classed as workers, with the right to a minimum wage and other benefits such as sick pay.

In May, with the TfL hearing looming, Uber did grant its drivers some of the rights afforded to workers – sort of. In Europe, drivers have been given a free insurance deal, which covers sickness, injury and maternity payments.


Baskerville says that it amounts to charging drivers for access to the rights which they’ve already been granted by the courts. He argues that although TfL’s initial complaint against Uber didn’t take employment issues into account, they should be considered when weighing up whether the company is “fit and proper” to operate in London. “They’re clearly connected,” he says. “Uber has been shirking its responsibilities to the people who drive its vehicles.”

Uber’s willingness to change course in response to pressure from TfL will likely save its London license, but the employment status of its drivers could prove a much bigger roadblock, both in the capital, and beyond.

Updated June 22, 2018: This story has been updated to reflet Uber's insurance deal that is free for drivers. It previously said they had to pay.