A Brazilian court fines Uber 190 million euros for "moral damages"

Uber loses court fight in Brazil. A Brazilian court this Thursday sentenced Uber to pay 1 billion reais (about 190 million euros) for “collective moral damages” to the application's drivers, which announced that it will appeal the decision.

The ruling of the Regional Labor Court of São Paulo has national scope and establishes that 90% of the value of the fine be allocated to an unemployment fund and the remaining 10% to associations of drivers of digital mobility applications.

Furthermore, the judge forces the company to recognize the “employment link” with its drivers and to register them with the labor authorities, under penalty of penalties of 10,000 reais per day per unregistered worker.

The decision comes in response to a lawsuit filed in 2021 by the Public Ministry of Labor, who considered during its investigations that Uber had “control” over “the way in which the activities of professionals should be carried out,” the prosecutor's office itself explained in a statement.

In the ruling, the judge agrees with the Public Ministry, considering that this control over the drivers was “much greater” than what was known until now, with “rewards and losses for attendance or absence, being connected for the trip or not. “, reads the decision.

“The action required a dense legal analysis and, without a shadow of a doubt, the largest cross-over of data in the history of the Public Ministry of Labor and Labor Justice,” said one of those responsible for the prosecutor's investigation, Renan Kalil. .

Uber has announced in a statement that it will appeal the ruling and that it will not adopt any of the measures decided by the judge until all possible legal remedies have been exhausted.

According to the platform, the court's decision represents an “isolated understanding and contrary to jurisprudence” and causes “legal uncertainty.”

Uber has one million drivers in Brazil who provide service to more than 30 million users in about 500 municipalities, according to platform data for the first quarter of 2022.