Uber & Taxis. Comparative Law Studies

The ‘Uber phenomenon’ is the perfect case for a comparative law study: a global phenomenon, impacting almost every country, causing massive disruption of local monopolies and raising many of the same legal questions worldwide. In most countries, taxi companies have long enjoyed monopolies amidst strictly regulated markets. Uber’s emergence, combined with the development of a new economic model based on innovative technological tools, has profoundly impacted the industry. It all happened very fast. Uber launched operations in 2009 in the United States and, within a few years, has changed the face of the taxi industry throughout the world. The purpose of this book is to explain how various legal systems reacted and adapted to the disruption caused by the emergence of this new economic model. It is a book about economic regulation, it focuses on how the law regulates – more or less strictly – the actions of economic entities. This book is the collective work of an amazing team of authors – all academics in law or lawyers – from around the world and representing twenty-two countries, namely Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States