NewsWatch
Keeping a critical eye on Uber,
Lyft and other transportation
network companies
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Uber driver charged in sexual assault of intoxicated passenger
An Uber driver sexually assaulted a highly intoxicated female passenger after a relative helped her into the ride service car after a night out on Division Street, Cook County prosecutors alleged. Alexander Marrero, 35, was charged with criminal sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping in the alleged attack on the 23-year-old woman last month.
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Safety concerns remain for Uber, Lyft ride sharing
In many parts of the country - and indeed, around the world - a ride-booking service is as close and easy to use as launching an app on a smartphone. But after nearly unimpeded growth in an industry that didn't exist a decade ago, around 30 U.S. jurisdictions have passed new ride-hailing regulatory legislation, all in the hopes of making services like Uber and Lyft safer for passenger use.
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Irate Uber driver is caught on tape: 'Get out of my car NOW!'
A confrontation between an Uber driver and rider at what appears to be a Long Beach hospital was caught on video. The unidentified driver was seen in the clip yelling "Get out of my car ... get out ... now!" Despite the driver's repeated demands to have his passenger leave his vehicle, the woman in the car doesn't budge. "You have no right to scream at me," she says, to which he replied, "I will f-----g talk to you any G-d--n way I want!"
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Uber driver arrested for robbery, carjacking
A gang of robbers and carjackers in Delhi-NCR that allegedly used Uber cabs for their crimes, was busted by the Delhi Police crime branch. One member of the gang, a driver with Uber, has been arrested for his alleged association with the 'Danish-Monu' gang of robbers and car jackers, police said. Police arrested a Uber cab driver, Mohammad Intezar, 34, who was involved in two crimes reported in Delhi and Noida in 2015 and 2016.
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Uber's investigators admit to lying while digging up dirt on legal foes
Ergo, the secretive, CIA-linked firm that was paid by Uber to investigate the plaintiff in one of the ride-hail startup's many lawsuits, has now admitted to lying and illegally recording phone calls during its probe, according to Law360. Lawyers for Ergo owned up to the infractions in oral arguments in court, drawing a rebuke from the judge overseeing the case.
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Lyft agrees to $6,000 FPPC fine for not reporting lobbying costs
Ride-sharing companies are known to oppose more regulations. But there's apparently one set of rules Lyft will have to deal with: state-mandated quarterly lobbying reports. The San Francisco company has agreed to pay a $6,000 fine from the California Fair Political Practices Commission for filing late lobbying reports. The company submitted its first lobbying report nearly a year and a half after the deadline. The company and others like it have become the target of legislation to regulate the growing industry in California and other states.
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Uber drivers must accept service animals under lawsuit settlement
Uber drivers who refuse to transport passengers with service animals may soon be ousted from the platform, according to new policies the ride-hailing company is adopting as part of a lawsuit settlement with the National Federation of the Blind. As part of the settlement, which was granted preliminary approval by the U.S. District Court in Northern California, the San Francisco firm has also agreed to train its customer service employees on how to handle alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, report anonymized data of alleged violations to the plaintiffs' attorney, and agree to compliance testing over the next 3½ years.
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Lyft loses as much as $50 million/month, president calls it 'investing'
When asked about reports that transportation network Lyft has been losing as much as $50 million a month, company President John Zimmer could have denied that amount, or offered another figure. But at a conference he confirmed the massive monthly leak, saying that he preferred to think of the drain as an investment. The discussion went down at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference.
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What Wall Street is saying about Uber's $1.15 billion term loan
Internet-based taxi service Uber, already a byword for disrupting established industries, has also confounded lenders in the leveraged loan market accustomed to mature and staid companies with its $1.15 billion term loan. The deal had a number of unique elements and surprised traditional players in the space. Leveraged loans are typically restricted to issuers with long histories of generating cash, and Uber burns through cash and generates negative Ebitda to fuel its rapid growth, sources said. This means there is no excess cash flow to pay back debt and no debt-to-Ebitda leverage ratio, which can be a hard sell.
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