Slashdot Mirror
UberX Runs Into Trouble In Australia With NSW Suspending Vehicle Registration
Harlequin80 writes: RMS (Roads & Maritime Service), the New South Wales' governing body for transport, has begun suspending the vehicle registration of UberX drivers. After failing to deter drivers through prosecutions, with Uber covering fines and legal costs of its drivers, RMS has begun suspending the registration of the vehicles as it forces the vehicle off the road for three months. Under the NSW Passenger Transport Act, paid ride sharing is illegal, and this will see UberX drivers losing the use of their vehicle for both Uber and personal use.
Hilarious.... but sadly might be true shortly.
The whole point of the new Trans Pacific Trade (and its Euro equivalent) agreement is Corporate Sovereignty, the right of corporations to sue countries for violating their rights to ply their trades however they see fit.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131024/11560725004/what-does-isds-mean-corporate-sovereignty-pure-simple.shtml
If they win the lawsuit, the country will be required to change the law to make whatever they blocked legal, regardless of the democracy or elected government. These cases will be heard by a tribunal of ex- Corporate laws (I kid you not, corporate lawyers will sit in private session and decide if the country needs to change its laws to make it legal).
http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2013/10/investors-are-increasingly-challenging-states-constitutional-court-decisions-in-investor-state-tribu.html
So Uber might one day be able to sue countries for daring to have long standing rules about Taxis that interfere with Ubers advantage. Ubers advantage is not be bound by the laws of taxis!
The whole reason why Taxi regulation and limits were introduced in many cases is because there used to be large amount of bad actors before and regulation was demanded by the clients (Poland, and many EU countries), or there was _to many_ actors (eg. NY during Great Depression) which led to race to zero where noone was making money.
The pendulum swung to far, and Uber came to life to restore balance, but we (and goverment) needs to make sure that the pendulum doesn't swing to much into another direction and we don't get repeat of what we had before.