France Orders 2 Uber Executives to Stand Trial

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/world/europe/france-orders-2-uber-executives-to-stand-trial.html

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PARIS — The Paris prosecutor’s office said Tuesday that two senior Uber executives in France had been ordered to stand trial on behalf of the company on charges including “deceptive commercial practices” and illegally organizing taxi services through its low-cost UberPop ride-hailing option.

Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, Uber’s general manager for Western Europe, and Thibaud Simphal, general manager at Uber France, were detained and questioned by the police in Paris on Monday. François Molins, the Paris prosecutor, said in a statement that the two executives had been released and that they would appear before a court in Paris on Sept. 30, both personally and in their capacity as representatives of the company.

Last week, thousands of taxi drivers staged large-scale demonstrations against the UberPop service, which they say is unfair competition. Legislation from last October has made the service illegal, but Uber has challenged the law and has encouraged its drivers to continue working.

The Paris prosecutor said in the statement that 202 UberPop drivers had been fined at this point and that one had been sentenced to a suspended 15-day prison sentence. The French authorities have been investigating Uber since November.