SYDNEY – Uber has agreed to pay A$271.8 million (S$239 million) to settle a lawsuit brought by Australian taxi operators and drivers, who say they lost income when the ride-hailing firm moved into the nation, a law firm said on March 18.

The settlement is Australia’s fifth-largest, Maurice Blackburn Lawyers said in a statement.

The class action suit was filed in 2019 in the Supreme Court of Victoria state on behalf of more than 8,000 taxi and hire-car owners and drivers, accusing Uber of breaking laws requiring taxis and hire cars to be licensed.

Uber’s arrival in the market in 2012 took revenue from licensed taxi drivers while destroying the value of the licences they had paid for, according to the lawsuit.

Uber had said it never knowingly broke the law.

“Uber fought tooth and nail at every point along the way,” Maurice Blackburn principal lawyer Michael Donelly said.

“After years of refusing to do the right thing by those we say it harmed, Uber has blinked.”

An Uber spokesperson said the company had contributed to state-level taxi compensation schemes since 2018 “and with today’s proposed settlement, we put these legacy issues firmly in our past”.

Uber did not disclose the proposed settlement in its response.

Former lawmaker and taxi driver Rod Barton, a member of the class action, said the settlement vindicated his belief that Uber had knowingly avoided the country’s taxi licensing rules.

“They knew full well they were required to have their drivers and their vehicles fully licenced,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“They chose not to do that, and they did a lot of things that gave them a commercial advantage against the taxi industry, which established their foothold.”

The law was changed in 2015, allowing Uber to operate without taxi licences while Australian state governments set up compensation schemes for taxi drivers and licence owners. REUTERS