“What the court concluded was that Uber overreached fairly dramatically here,” says Wright, one of the lawyers who represented appellant David Heller in the case, Heller v. Uber Technologies Inc., 2019 ONCA 1.

The decision overturned that of the lower court and dealt a blow to the ride-hailing technology company, which now faces the prospect of a class action lawsuit in Ontario.

Wright says it’s not yet clear if Uber will seek leave to appeal this decision before the Supreme Court of Canada, now that the case has standing to go through the process to be certified as a class action suit.

Heller started as a delivery driver for the UberEATS app in 2016, a process which involved a “driver services agreement” with Uber-affiliated company Rasier Operations BV, the decision said. A clause in the agreement stated it was “exclusively governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of The Netherlands,” and said any dispute “shall be first mandatorily submitted to mediation proceedings under the International Chamber of Commerce Mediation Rules.”

After 60 days, the dispute would be resolved by arbitration where the “place of arbitration shall be Amsterdam, The Netherlands,” according to the agreement detailed in the decision.