Judge throws out case against Uber brought by 13,000 London cab drivers

A legal challenge mounted by more than 13,000 black cab drivers against ride-share company Uber has been rejected by the High Court after it was ruled to have been submitted too late.

Brought in 2024, the group claim concerned the app’s operations across London between mid-2012 and March 2018.

Taxi drivers alleged Uber intentionally deceived Transport for London (TfL) about its ride-booking system, breaching private hire licensing regulations.

Uber denied the claims.

During a three-day preliminary hearing earlier this year, a sample group of 20 cab drivers took part to establish whether they knew of the alleged misrepresentation before June 2018.

The law states that several types of legal action, including over alleged conspiracy, must be launched within six years of someone discovering they could have a worthwhile claim.

Delivering his judgment on Monday, Mr Justice Birt ruled the cases were time-barred and brought too late.

“It is clear that there were a number of different people, or groups of people, who were interested from the outset of Uber’s arrival in London in how Uber’s system operated and, among other things, how bookings were taken, with a view to seeking to establish that Uber was not operating within the statutory framework and should not have a licence,” he said.

The judge said that a letter from TfL to Uber was issued in September 2017, where it declined to renew Uber’s licence in the capital and said it considered the app had been misleading.

This letter was published in December 2017 by the London Taxi Drivers Association.

Mr Justice Birt said that there was “certainly enough information generally known and understood about the way in which Uber was operating to approach lawyers to explore what courses of action might be available”.

He later said that the claimants could have taken steps in their claims within weeks after the decision letter was published.

The judge added: “Black cab drivers generally were well-informed, through a number of sources, including their trade associations, in relation to Uber’s operations, and there was a prevailing view for a number of years before 2018 that Uber was operating unlawfully and must have misled TfL.”

An Uber spokesperson told the Press Association the company was “proud to work with thousands of private hire and black cab drivers to serve millions of passengers across London.

“We are pleased that the court has dismissed all of these claims entirely at the earliest opportunity and the ruling today has put these legacy matters firmly in the past.”

Monday's ruling comes ahead of an even larger case involving Uber in London next week, when the company fights the British tax authority in a more than £1 billion tax dispute.