Uber Lawbreaking Case

UBER is a recent startup tech company providing a service equivalent to regular taxi with better rates and faster service. The case illustrates that UBER has been using some less than direct approaches to stealing the effectiveness of the competition and limiting their overall profitability. The greater question that is born out of an understanding of this particular case is whether or not it is ok to take short rides from a competing taxi company or call for a ride and cancel afterward, something that is contractually within the rights of the customer, or whether or not this is ethically wrong. In terms of seeking to answer this, the following analysis will leverage my own ethical approach; the consequentialist perspective. This will be done as a means of ascertaining whether or not UBER is in the wrong or whether or not the practices that have been discussed thus far are acceptable.

Uber has offered the ride-hailing service that connects individual drivers and passengers through their smartphone app. The company has grown by adopting the aggressive strategy: subsidising rides to keep fares down while rapidly expanding into new cities. However, because of the Uber’s cheaper service that substitutes and disrupts the heavily protected taxi industry, Uber has been the center of the controversy, although it has the innovative business model that benefits consumers. The strong reactions of angry taxi drivers and upset regulators brought Uber to legitimacy issues. Uber needs to decide a strategy to overcome legitimacy issues effectively.

The final and most controversial pricing structure is Uber’s use of dynamic pricing for high volume days such as New Year’s or Halloween and also during inclement weather conditions. Uber notifies customers of the increased pricing structure when ordering a car in an effort to reduce demand, but because fares are computed after the service is complete, this pricing structure has become very controversial.

Uber and Volkswagen are both very important and revolutionary companies that have shaped the world in their own individual ways. Although they are successful, they both have interesting start up stories and have run into the law on multiple occasions. Law has had a powerful impact on the how both companies have created their business model and made expansions to better each company. In the novels Wild Ride by Adam Lashinsky and Faster, Higher, Farther by Jack Ewing the authors go through the company’s stories and also the legal challenges that they had to face along the way and that they are still facing to this day. It is clear that the law gets in the way of these companies plans, and has gotten major employees of these companies in a lot of trouble for the illegalities that they committed. Many major companies get sued by employees and customers because they try to make money off of them. In many of the cases we can examine if it is worth it for the company to fight all of these cases individually or to group the similar ones together and make necessary changes to the company to satisfy the employees and customers. Even with some of these issues going on and many counter-arguments, both Uber and Volkswagen have handled their situations with the law very well to keep the companies moving forward.

The last in a list of California labor law violations, Uber is now accused of owing its drivers California overtime pay. New out of Los Angeles, California indicates that while still dealing with allegations that Uber drivers are misclassified, a new wave of allegations are forming – led by Greg Fisher.

Uber has widely known for its lower transaction costs which is resulted from efficiency in operation cost, or in other word low labor cost. Uber drivers is not the company’s employees but independent contractor. Therefore, Uber has been criticized for their treatment to the individuals who provide the service under their smartphone applications and take benefits from them (Dyal-Chand, 2015). Average hourly wages for drivers is around USD8 – 10, exclude their car depreciation (Weber and Silverman, 2015). Therefore, Uber transfers part of operation cost such as vehicle depreciation cost and employee benefits to the drivers as its independent contractor. In her note, Posen comprehensively describes and analyzes the lawsuits from taxi industry and states where it operate. Unfortunately, she only provide a glimpse about the lawsuits from Uber’s drivers without any solution to be

In recent year, Uber has been rocked by a stream of controversies and negative publicity from scandals regarding CEO to questionable practices, sexual harassment, and discrimination claims, a d hacked attack. For instance, in February 2017, Susan Fowler a former engineer in Uber went public with allegations of discrimination and sexual harassment. During the same year, the self-driving car company Waymo which is owned by Google filed a lawsuit against Uber. The company accused Uber of theft of its technology. They sued Anthony Levandowski for stealing a raft of self-driving car trade patents and secrets which include information on lidar. Even though uber later fired this engine this lawsuit could be a fatal setback for the company. Moreover,

With new Presidential leadership, Uber has faced major political challenges with the restrictions and emphasis on illegal immigration. Furthermore, the restrictions on illegal immigrants have affected the support drivers of Uber as many of the drivers were illegal immigrants (Anand, 2017). Consequently, when the current president imposed the travel band many Uber drivers that were outside the United States were unable to re-enter the country (Anand, 2017). As previously noted, Uber has faced many political challenges regarding its failure to require the Uber drivers to have background checks. Furthermore, there has been allegations of untrustworthiness of its drivers, which many have faced some type of criminal charges (Anand, 2017).

Since Uber started up, the issue of GST has been very controversial. Until recently, customers did not have to pay tax for the service (part of the reason why Uber was so cheap and therefore attractive). The Australian Tax Office has since forced Uber to change it’s policies and as of August 1, has increased it’s prices by 10% to cover these new costs. Uber is now challenging the ATO’s decision in the Federal Court.

In the article, “Everyone Hates Uber’s Surge Pricing – Here’s How to Fix It” by Utpal M. Dholakia, the writer addresses how Uber increases its usual fare prices using a multiplier to counteract a scarcity of drivers available, this is known as surge pricing. The article discusses how using microeconomics, Uber creates a market price for drivers and riders to calculate surge prices while also giving insight as to how Uber could make surge pricing more appealing to the consumer. Although the goal of surge pricing is mainly to bring an “equilibrium price” between the supply of drivers and the demand of riders, most consumers are uncertain as to what actual influences the price fluctuation.

There have been several instances of driver misconduct that have resulted in the Uber being held liable. This communication is an attempt to provide clarity to drivers and affiliates as to how misconduct affects the whole team. The main principles of Uber will be discussed as well circumstances that can result in company liability. Lastly, policies implemented in order to minimize liability is discussed.

In modern society’s day and age, we still have many types of transportations that helps us complete some of our daily needs. You can drive, grab a bus, take a train or even get a quick workout and walk. However, as society progressed and wages increased, people start spending money on other ways to get around instead of driving themselves such as Uber: an app that allows other people to drive you places for a small fee depending on its location. Uber may be cheaper than having your own car but it isn’t always very reliable or convenient. Having your own car provides a reliable source of transportation. Although insurance and maintenance can be pricey; Uber is a relatively cheap and easy system of transportation, although it can be unreliable.

The opening words to this company’s own about us page is “Uber is evolving the way the world moves.” For most organizations, this would be considered hyperbolic gloating- but in just six short years of existence, Uber truly has begun a revolution. What began as a fast way to get a ride has revolutionized the transportation industry, influenced new companies in the housing market, and sparked a debate that has seen the creation of new laws and regulations. The company may be evolving the way the world moves, but the nature of change means that certain risks are inherent. Thus, the "evolution" has been met with legitimate criticism from politicians and competing cab services. Uber has become a billion dollar company, and to begin understanding

(Davis, 2015). A peer review was written by Jennie Davis called, Drive at your own risk: Uber Violates Unfair Competition Laws by Misleading Uberx Drivers about their Insurance Coverage, explains that the company, in this case, is misleading and that the firm tell the drivers that they are adequately covered by their insurance with passengers are driving for them as UberX (Davis, 2015). However, in reported cases concerning car accident, Uber was found not communicating with UberX, this omission of the truth lead California State Law to enforce want to be UberX to have insurance the moment they download the app (Davis, 2015). In the end, the Uber Technology, Inc. fail to see give their drivers an understanding of advantages and disadvantages to driving for them, in doing so their empirical history has already misled both employee and consumer (Davis,