NEW YORK

Mayor Bill de Blasio has ordered a review of predatory practices in the New York City taxi business, following a scathing report in the New York Times detailing how powerful industry leaders inflated medallion prices and exploited drivers as local officials willfully ignored warning signs about the collapsing market.

"The review will set down strict new rules that prevent broker practices that hurt drivers," the mayor said in a statement on Monday. "It's unacceptable to prey on hardworking New Yorkers trying to support their families and we'll do all that we can to put an end to it."

After reaching a high of $1 million in 2014, the price of a medallion has plummeted in recent years, with the city's largely immigrant drivers facing the brunt of the consequences. Close to 1,000 medallion owners have filed for bankruptcy, and at least eight professional drivers have taken their own lives in the last 18 months.

But while that collapse has been widely blamed on the arrival of rideshare companies, a two-part Times investigation traces much of the devastation to lax oversight and reckless lending practices of shady brokers and big banks, which apparently saw an opening to take advantage of immigrant drivers. In some cases, drivers making $30,000 a year said they were duped into signing contracts with hidden fees that left them on the hook for millions. Those contracts were fueled by practices "strikingly similar to those behind the housing market crash," according to the paper, and created a system that one analyst likened to "modern-day indentured servitude,"

In response to the reporting, de Blasio has announced a multi-agency investigation to be overseen by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, the Department of Finance and Department of Consumer Affairs over the next 45 days. New York Attorney General Letitia James will also probe the "disturbing reports" to see if lenders engaged in illegal activity.

Beyond the egregious lending activity, the Times exposé suggests that federal, state, and city officials worsened the crisis, then essentially abandoned financially ruined drivers. Under Mayors Bloomberg and Mayor de Blasio, the city made more than $855 million through selling taxi medallions and collecting taxes on private sales. Even as concerns about the medallion bubble swirled, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, a city agency ostensibly in charge of regulating the industry, declared the investment "better than the stock market."

While that regulatory neglect has roots in the early 1990s, the ruinous policies were continued by de Blasio, according to the Times. A close ally of the taxi industry, the current mayor and presidential candidate continued the practice of placing "political allies inside the Taxi and Limousine Commission and [directing] it to sell medallions to help them balance budgets and fund priorities." According to Politico, four of the mayor's ten major bundlers in his 2013 campaign had ties to the taxi industry. When the medallion market crashed, de Blasio opted not to fund a bailout.

On Monday, Council Member Ritchie Torres alleged that his own efforts to probe the industry were stymied by the de Blasio-controlled agency. "The T.L.C. hasn't just been asleep at the wheel, they have been actively stonewalling," he said.

http://gothamist.com
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A Barcelona-based association of taxi drivers on Thursday announced it would lodge a legal complaint against ride-hailing services Uber and Cabify for fraud and other offences.

In all the Elite Taxi group, which represents 2,000 drivers, will take on 11 firms and 15 individuals, as well as US-based Uber and Spanish company Cabify, according to Alberto Alvarez, spokesman for the association.

The legal complaint, to be lodged in Madrid next week, is just the latest attempt by registered taxi drivers in several countries to stop potential customers using the new, less regulated, services which they believe provide unfair competition.

The accusations will include fraud but also money-laundering, tax infringements and flouting workers' rights.

Rideshare companies maintain that drivers are able to thrive and maintain work flexibility, and that their business model would not work if drivers were treated as wage-based employees.

In late 2017, the Elite Taxi association obtained a judicial victory when the European Court of Justice ruled that Uber is an ordinary transportation company instead of just an online app and should be regulated as such.

Last year Spanish taxi drivers went on strike for several days, calling in the authorities to restrain the activities of the ride-hailing operators.

In several Spanish cities, including Valencia and Barcelona, new rules have been adopted including requiring customers of ride-hailing services to book a ride at least 15 minutes in advance.

https://phys.org/news/2019-05-barcelona-taxi-drivers-lodge-legal.html