Thursday, November 19, 2015

Uber Fined $50 Million

Fighting a government that aggressively protects crony entrenched businesses can be difficult, even if you are Uber.

Eric Boehm reports:

The showdown between Uber and Pennsylvania has escalated, and it’s getting expensive.

A pair of Pennsylvania judges on Tuesday recommended a massive $50 million fine against ride-sharing company Uber for operating in the state without a license and for resisting the state Public Utility Commission’s efforts to obtain information about how many rides Uber has provided in the state...
The ruling is not final and Uber does not have to pay the fine immediately. The ride-sharing service and the state PUC have 20 days to file statements about the fine.

“We’re extremely disappointed in today’s recommendation,” said Taylor Bennett, a spokesperson for Uber, in a statement. “Uber has made repeated good faith efforts to settle, all of which have been rejected by I&E.”

2 comments:

  1. Institute for Justice has made headway taking on stuff like this. This looks like a commission panel decision and not actually a court of record given the wording of the fine and its enforcement.

    The biggest problem is the dichotomy of how the Uber executives are approaching their stance towards regulatory bodies. They started out flipping regulators the bird trying to get entrenched, and now they want to make a deal based on how entrenched they are saying you can't just ban what we're doing. Tactics aside, taking monopolistic state regulatory bodies on head on, right or wrong, only makes the kings of their domain want to do what they love doing. Also known as smacking you down with a baseball bat and making you respect the end-all personification of appointed and anointed authoritarian excellence they perceive they are. These guys never forget when you make them look bad or try and usurp their dominion. Power mongers are a very vengeful bunch.

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  2. It's a wonder anyone does business in this country. Atlas Shrugged was originally titled The Strike. It's certainly tempting to tell the regulators to go to hell.

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