Uber Eats is giving up its plan to acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan delivery service and must pay a fee of US$250 million for canceling the agreement, reports said today.
Uber Technologies Inc announced its plan to buy Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan for US$950 million in May last year.
The deal was prohibited by the Fair Trade Commission in December due to concerns about competition.
Photo: Bill Chen, Taipei Times
If Uber acquired Foodpanda, it would monopolize more than 90 percent of the food delivery market in Taiwan, which may lead to raised prices, Reuters and Bloomberg cited the commission as saying.
Uber was disappointed with the commission’s ruling, but would respect it and would not appeal, a spokesperson for the company said in a statement to Bloomberg.
“We remain committed to the Taiwan market and would continue to serve local consumers, businesses and delivery partners in an innovative and competitive manner,” the spokesperson said.
Taiwan remains a part of Delivery Hero’s long-term strategy, the company said.
The original deal also specified that Uber would buy US$300 million worth of Delivery Hero’s newly issued stocks.
The collapse of the merger would not affect this share purchase agreement, Delivery Hero told Reuters.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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