California taxis sue Uber for 'false' safety claims

LOS ANGELES: Just hours after Germany banned ride-sharing site Uber's UberPop service, the company faced legal trouble on its front doorstep Wednesday, when 19 California taxi companies filed suit for false advertising, according to media reports.
The suit, filed in San Francisco's federal district court near Uber's world headquarters, accuses Uber of using false claims of "the safest rides on the road" to gain unfair competitive advantage over taxis, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Customers "mistakenly believe that they will get a safer ride" with Uber, the taxi companies said in the complaint.
The plaintiffs charge that far from being safer, Uber employs drivers who haven't gone through the same fingerprinting and background checks required of taxi drivers under California law.
In a statement, Uber spokesperson Eva Behrend called the charges "frivolous" and "without merit," according to the report.
"Uber's multi-layered driver screening includes county, federal and multi-state checks and the rating system and traceability of the Uber platform gives riders and drivers unprecedented transparency," she said.
The charges were only the latest in a torrent of legal challenges to Uber's business, which connects mobile-toting passengers with amateur drivers for discounted, if unlicensed, rides.
Earlier Wednesday, a German court banned the company's local service UberPop, saying it amounted to an unlicensed taxi company.
On Tuesday, South Korean authorities charged 29 people including the company's president with running an illegal taxi service, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Earlier this week, police in Paris raided the company's offices there, the New York Times reported.
The challenges follow bans on the app on similar grounds in India, Spain and Thailand instituted in 2014.
Uber was founded in San Francisco in 2010. The company said it employed 162,037 "active" drivers as of December 2014. – dpa