Taxi drivers’ union ANTRAL has lodged a €6.8 million court action against the State for “non compliance of judicial decisions” prohibiting the activity of online platforms like Uber – the smartphone service that has been decimating traditional cabbies’ business since arriving in force in Portugal during 2015.
The action centres on the fact that smartphone cabs were deemed illegal by a lower court as long ago as April 23, 2015.
The court ‘condemned’ online services to pay a fine of €10,000 per day if they did not abide by the judicial decision and cease operating.
“Six hundred and eighty one days have passed since then, which translates into the amount (to pay) of €6,810,000”, ANTRAL’s president Florêncio Almeida told reporters as the legal bid was delivered to Lisbon’s administrative court.
Almeida has been keeping a low profile since the confusion of ANTRAL’s last anti-Uber protests in Lisbon (click here).
Quizzed as to what the union will do if it doesn’t get the money it is asking for, Almeida said it is prepared to go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights – adding that new protest initiatives, both here and abroad, are planned for March and April.
