Uber Technologies Inc is suspending its low-cost ride-hailing service in France, hoping to defuse an escalating legal dispute and sometimes violent tensions with traditional French taxi drivers.
The unusual concession comes after the stakes mounted this week in Uber’s standoff with France: Two senior European managers for the San Francisco-based company were detained on Monday and ordered to stand trial, charged with “deceptive commercial practices.”
It reflects the broader struggle of governments to keep up with fast-moving technology — and how to tax operations like Uber’s and protect workers and consumers.
Companies like Uber argue that governments are unfairly protecting entrenched industries instead of adapting to the times.
Uber has run into legal problems elsewhere in Europe, as well as in China and India.
The French battle centers around Uber’s low-cost service, in France called UberPop, which links users to drivers without professional taxi or chauffeur licenses.
Protests turned violent last week, with cars set alight and reports of UberPop passengers being attacked. French authorities had ordered it shut down, but Uber refused, pending a legal decision at a top French court.
Uber France chief Thibaud Simphaud said in an interview published yesterday in Le Monde that the company changed its mind “in a spirit of bringing peace” with authorities.
“Uber has decided to immediately suspend UberPop in France,” the US company said in a statement.
The decision to suspend the service “follows the acts of violence of the past two weeks,” it said. An Uber spokesman confirmed that the service was being suspended starting yesterday evening.
Simphaud and another European manager for Uber were detained this week and ordered to stand trial on Sept. 30. They are accused of six counts, including deceptive commercial practices, complicity in instigating an illegal taxi-driving activity and the illegal stockpiling of personal information.
Claiming unfair competition, taxi drivers staged a violence-marred strike last week, blocking many roads across France.
Uber’s regular app-based service, which connects registered drivers with riders, continues to function in France. Uber claims to have a total of 400,000 customers per month in France.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS