ADVOCATE GENERAL SZPUNAR’S OPINION: AN ELECTRONIC APPLICATION FOR TAXI SERVICES CONSTITUTES AN INFORMATION SOCIETY SERVICE

Star Taxi App SRL V Unitatea Administrativ Teritorială Municipiul Bucureşti prin Primar General et Consiliul General al Munici

14.09.2020

Advocate General Szpunar’s Opinion in Case C-62/19 Star Taxi App SRL released on September 10, 2020.

S.C. Star Taxi App SRL, a company established in Bucharest (Romania), operates a smartphone application which places users of taxi services directly in touch with taxi drivers. That application makes it possible to run a search which displays a list of taxi drivers available for a journey. The customer is then free to choose a particular driver from the list. The company does not forward bookings to taxi drivers and does not set the fare, which is paid directly to the driver at the end of the journey.

On 19 December 2017, Bucharest Municipal Council adopted Decision No 626/2017, which extended the scope of the obligation to apply for authorisation for the activity of ‘dispatching’ to cover operators of IT applications such as Star Taxi App. Star Taxi App was fined 4 500 Romanian lei for having infringed those rules.

According to Advocate General Szpunar, a service consisting in putting taxi passengers directly in touch, via an electronic application, with taxi drivers constitutes an Information Society Service where that service is not inherently linked to the taxi transport service so that it does not form an integral part of the taxi transport service.

You can find the press release text of the Opinion of Advocate General here.

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Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law

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