The High Court has ruled that claims brought against Uber by nearly 13,300 London black cab drivers and a former private hire operator cannot proceed, finding them to be time-barred.
The case, Garry White v Uber, alleged that the company had conspired to misrepresent how its app and operating model worked as it established itself in the capital. The drivers said they had been unlawfully deprived of trade during Uber's rapid expansion across London.
The June 2018 watershed
At the heart of the ruling is the law of limitation, which requires claims to be brought within fixed periods after the claimant knew, or could reasonably have discovered, the facts said to found the case. The court found that the claimants could reasonably have discovered the alleged fraud before June 2018. Because the proceedings were issued outside the applicable window measured from that point, the claims were out of time.
The judgment brings to an end, subject to any appeal, one of the largest collective grievances ever mounted by the licensed taxi trade, which has fought Uber's arrival in London through protests, judicial reviews and licensing battles for well over a decade.
Garry White v Uber: The Ruling at a Glance
- Nearly 13,300 London black cab drivers and a former private hire operator sued Uber alleging conspiracy.
- The High Court ruled the claims are time-barred and cannot proceed.
- The court found the alleged fraud could reasonably have been discovered before June 2018.
- The claims were issued outside the limitation period measured from that date.
- The claimants may yet seek permission to appeal.
A dispute older than the app itself
Uber's arrival in London in 2012 transformed the capital's private hire market and triggered years of conflict with the licensed trade, from the go slow protests that gridlocked Whitehall to Transport for London's decision in 2017, later reversed in the courts, not to renew the company's licence. The conspiracy claim was the trade's most ambitious attempt yet to win compensation for those turbulent years.
For the drivers, the outcome is bitter. Many have retired or left the trade since the events in question, and the action represented what they saw as a final accounting for a period in which, they argued, the rules were bent beyond recognition. For Uber, the ruling closes a significant strand of its historic London litigation.
What happens next
It remains open to the claimants to seek permission to appeal, and lawyers for large group actions rarely concede at the first fence. The lesson the courts will draw from the ruling is a familiar one: in English civil litigation, delay can be fatal, and the clock starts running from when a claimant could have found the facts, not when they finally chose to act on them.