Manchester United has signed taxi app Uber as a global sponsor partner. 

No figure was announced for the sponsorship that will see Uber designated as the Official Ride of Manchester United.

The deal is the “first partnership of its kind for the club”, said a press release. It will include a dedicated Uber pick-up and drop off zone which will be set up at Old Trafford.

More motivating for Uber in the deal is the global reach of Man Utd’s brand. Uber will be able to offer users a number of Man Utd experiences including behind-the-scenes content in more than 30 countries around the world where it operates.

“Uber makes it easier for people around the world to connect to what they care about and now we’re excited to give that connection to Manchester United fans,” said Amy Friedlander Hoffman, Head of Business Development – Experiential Marketing at Uber.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with Manchester United to not only make match day transportation more seamless, but to deliver fans incredible experiences throughout the season, no matter where they are supporting from.”

http://www.insideworldfootball.com/2017/01/12/taxi-man-utd-uber-added-global-partnership-portfolio/

Comment: It is believed complaints about the activities of the SOME of the Trafford Hackney trade influenced this decision:

 'Ripped off by £10-a-mile taxis'
UNITED fans claim they are being ripped off by taxi drivers charging sky-high fares for journeys back to the city centre. Black cab drivers are demanding up to £20 for a journey of less than two miles between Old Trafford and Deansgate.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/ripped-off-by-10-a-mile-taxis-952210

http://bit.ly/2jebgu0
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 KARHOO RISES FROM THE ASHES

 It looks like one of the more notable stalls in the world of on-demand rides is going to get another change to see if it can drive ahead. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Karhoo — a failed on-demand offering that aggregated drivers and ride options from hundreds of existing fleets of car services in an Uber-like app — has been brought out of administration.

It will be relaunched by Boris Pilichowski and Nicolas Andine as co-CEOs, with full financial backing from RCI Bank and Services, the financial services division of the car giant Renault. Pilichowski and Andine had been running Karhoo just before it went bankrupt, taking over from founder Daniel Ishag.

The plan will be to open for business globally sometime this year, although no definite launch date has been set.

While the new owners are not publicly revealing financial terms, a source has passed us a report from Karhoo’s administrators with more details. The document alleges that the new Karhoo was acquired by a group called Flit Technologies, led by “two former employees” of Karhoo with full backing from RCI Bank and Services, for around $1 million ($500,000 for Karhoo, $500,000 towards paying creditors), plus a commitment of $15 million in further investment.

The development comes after the administrators originally received bids from between 30 and 40 interested groups, the report said.

There are other interesting details in the administrators’ document. For example, while it had been reported originally that Karhoo had raised $250 million in funding, apparently it had only actually raised around $52 million. In any case, it was all spent, with the monthly burn rate at the startup going as high as $6 million a month at its peak, and then down to $2.5 million when Karhoo went into cost-control mode.

Renault buying into Karhoo is part of a larger trend we’ve been seeing of automotive companies buying into the growing world of on-demand transportation startups, in part to hedge their bets about what the future of automotive ownership and driving will look like. Others have included VW investing $300 million in Gett, Daimler buying a majority of Hailo, and GM putting $500 million in Lyft.

Up to now Renault has largely been absent from those investment and acquisition plays, but it has been eyeing up a moment to make its move.

“In 2016 we formed a range of partnerships to support our development strategy on auto-mobility services and solutions for our customers,” said Gianluca De Ficchy, CEO of RCI Bank and Services, in a statement.

“The acquisition of the start-up Karhoo appeared as a sudden opportunity that we did not want to miss and the acquisition was completed rapidly. We have met the highly-motivated teams, and I have every confidence in Karhoo’s business model; it is innovative and underpinned by a first-class technological platform. We will also be able to capitalize on this platform as part of our activities for the Alliance brands.”

The reasons for Karhoo’s original problems were numerous. As detailed in the administrators’ report, among them, it took two years for the company to get its app off the ground, while the startup continued to consume resources; it had problems with overcharging in some cases and offering too many rides for no charge in other cases; and it had poor fraud protection in place.

So how can suppliers and customers know that Karhoo will work this time around? For one, the app finally did get built, and it won’t launch again until all the kinks have been ironed out. And while Uber has dominated in many markets through sheer will, early mover advantage and finance, many want to see strong competitors to keep the market on an even keel. Having players backed by large automakers gives some insurance to the market that there will be financing there, but also alternatives for how the business model is implemented.

“There is a need in ground transportation for someone to aggregate all the independents and allow them to compete and we are determined to make sure Karhoo fills that need,” the co-CEOs said in a statement. “Karhoo was amazingly successful in ferrying hundreds of thousands of people around the world but lacked a corporate backer, but with RCI Bank and Services, we now have that.”

While Karhoo had about 200 employees, the new operation will be kicking off with only 35 people, with the majority based in the U.K. The company had forged links with hundreds of car service companies to built out its service. Whether these groups will be willing to work with Karhoo again remains to be seen.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/karhoo-rides-again-nissanrenault-buys-failed-on-demand-ride-startup/
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 New York "Taxi King" Gene Freidman could receive a free ride to jail after he allegedly failed to comply with all terms of a bankruptcy court order compelling him to turn over 46 of his taxis to a court-appointed trustee.

Chapter 7 trustee Gregory Messer petitioned the Brooklyn, N.Y., bankruptcy court on Tuesday to hold Freidman in contempt of court for failing to hand over 23 of the cabs by a Monday deadline. A contempt hearing tentatively has been set for Jan. 19 before Judge Carla E. Craig.

Craig threatened to incarcerate Freidman if he didn't turn all the taxis and medallions over at a Dec. 28 hearing that set the terms of the vehicle surrender. Freidman previously had said that he wanted to turn the cabs over to the city's Taxi & Limousine Commission.
"I am ordering him to turn them over. He cannot decide that he ought to turn them over to the TLC. He has to turn them over," Craig said from the bench in December. "If he does not, he will be incarcerated. I am not kidding about this."

Freidman owns 830 medallions, more than anyone else in New York. He put holding companies that own 46 of those medallions into Chapter 11 in July 2015, blaming the rise of ride-sharing startups such as Uber and Lyft for their decline. The cases -- administered jointly under Hypnotic Taxi -- were taken out of Freidman's hands in September after he failed to produce a realistic reorganization plan and attempted to abandon the cabs outside the Queens office of creditor Citibank.

As a Chapter 7 trustee, Messer is required to sell the taxis for the purpose of bringing in as much money as possible for the bankruptcy estate. He won permission to seize the cabs after Freidman failed to make a $92,000 payment on the medallions.

Under the terms of the surrender, Freidman was ordered to deliver the taxis to a lot on Long Island, where they would then be operated by a different taxi management company and sold off piecemeal to avoid flooding the open market with taxi medallions.

The trustee now says Freidman changed his tune on the turnover process by making unsubstantiated claims that he did not own some of the taxis covered by the surrender order, that eight of them were nonoperational and that five of the vehicles had been repossessed.

"Remember money is money, but jail is jail!" Freidman said in an email to Messer's lawyers on Saturday about the turnover dispute and contempt motion. "People go to jail, but eventually they get out!"

Freidman said in a motion to stay the turnover order pending an appeal that the order violated his due process rights by compelling him to turn over vehicles not owned by the debtor holding companies.

Gary F. Herbst of LaMonica Herbst & Maniscalco, counsel to Messer, said via email that Freidman now will turn the remaining cabs over on Thursday and Friday -- but the contempt hearing remains on the calendar.

"The trustee has made arrangements with Mr. Freidman to pick up the rest of the vehicles," Herbst said.

Freidman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did his lawyer, David M. Bass of Cole Schotz.

The collapse of yellow cabs' supremacy in New York has sent Freidman's fortunes tumbling down. He was evicted from his Manhattan office space in September for falling behind on rent, five months after he was ordered by the New York attorney general's office to pay $250,000 in fines and damages for not keeping accurate receipts and slow-paying his drivers on their credit card fares.

https://www.thestreet.com/story/13952463/1/gene-freidman-could-get-ride-to-jail-in-taxi-turnover-flap.html
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DELTA CARS LIVERPOOL

 A taxi driver went on trial accused of forcing a male passenger to perform a sex act while driving his car.

Private hire taxi driver Khaldon Mohammed, 30, of Gwendoline Street, Toxteth , denies raping the customer in his taxi in Aigburth in 2015.

him, but only by groping his genitals.

Arthur Gibson, prosecuting, said: “He now says it is true the customer performed a sex act on him, but that it was at all times consensual.

“Your task is decide who is telling the truth and who is telling lies.”

He said the customer was a gay man who had gone out and drunk around six bottles of lager, plus single glasses of champagne and whisky.

Mr Gibson said the man described himself as being drunk, but not so drunk that he did not know what he was doing.

The customer said he ordered a takeaway to be delivered to his home and then called Delta Taxis.

The man said he got in the back of the car and Mohammed started a conversation, but he couldn’t hear him, so the driver invited him to climb into the front passenger seat.

Mr Gibson said: “The usual banter took a strange and what is clearly now a sinister turn, because the defendant started to ask him about his sexual orientation and came out with the question ‘do you like d***?’”

He said the journey continued, before Mohammed “suddenly” unzipped his jeans, “pulled” the man’s head down and “forced him” to perform a sex act.

Mr Gibson said the driver pushed him away when they stopped at red traffic lights, because people were around, before pulling his head down again.

He said after Mohammed finished, the journey ended and the man got out and ran into his home.

When arrested, Mohammed told police the man repeatedly put his hand down his trousers and groped him against his will, but insisted no sex acts took place.

Mohammed accepted he did not try to get the man out of his car, or seek help from his taxi firm or the police, despite driving past a police station.

However, Mr Gibson said that account was “untrue”, as the taxi driver now accepted a consensual sex act did take place, saying it was instigated by the customer.

He said he consented even though he had never had sexual relations with a man before and explained he was previously “too embarrassed” to admit it.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/taxi-driver-accused-forcing-male-12445718
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REDBRIDGE


A taxi cab driver accused of sexually assaulting a woman while taking her to Redbridge appeared in court this morning.

Richard Murali, 54, of Wadeville Avenue, Chadwell Heath, had his first hearing at Barkingside Magistrates Court charged with sexual assault.

Mr Murali, a cab driver who works in Romford, spoke only to confirm his name, age and address.

Represented by Patrick Kelly and Arora Lodhi Heath Solicitors, the defendant is also charged with driving without insurance.

He was granted conditional bail and is due at Snaresbrook Crown Court on February 8.

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