German court overturns decision to stop discounted rides on mytaxi app

Germany’s supreme court ruled today that mytaxi are allowed to market discounted fares despite a previous lower court ruling going against the ride-hailing giants. In a statement the Federal Court of Justice said “(mytaxi) is itself not a taxi company, to which fixed prices would apply. It only acts as an agent for taxi orders that are independently carried out by taxi companies,” This decision overturns a previous lower court ruling in Frankfurt back in 2016 where it found the discounts were illegal and a “unfair commercial practice”. The German taxi operator Taxi Deutschland, fierce competitors of mytaxi, brought the case to the courts claiming the discounts undercut official regulated fares. Like in London mytaxi had advertised taxi rides for half the metered price if passengers used the app to pay rather than using cash. The drivers were always paid the full metered price, minus the standard commission fee. However, today, the supreme court stated it saw no reason to stop competition among operators simply relaying fares to taxi drivers.