High Court sets timetable for key limitation battle in £340 MILLION Uber London black taxi and PHV operator claim

A High Court judge has set out how a major damages claim brought by around 13,000 London black cab drivers against Uber will move forward, including a key limitation battle that could make or break the action.

The claim, valued at about £199 million for the taxi drivers, centres on allegations that Uber obtained and used its Transport for London (TfL) private hire vehicle operator licence between 2012 and March 2018 on the back of misrepresentations about how its business operated. A second linked claim, worth an estimated £141 million, has been issued by the alleged assignee of two private hire operators, Kabbee and Iride. Together the claims total roughly £340 million.

Uber have denied any wrongdoing and says the current legal action, filed at the High Court last year, came too late and should be thrown out.

In a ruling dated 22 October 2025, Mrs Justice O’Farrell confirmed that a preliminary issue on limitation will be tried before the main dispute. The question for the court will be when the claimants discovered, or could with reasonable diligence have discovered, the alleged fraud or deliberate concealment relied upon to extend the usual six year time limit under section 32 of the Limitation Act 1980.

Limitation issue focused on June 2018

Uber argues that any claim relating to its pre March 2018 operating model is out of time either by March 2018, when the relevant period of operation ended, or by March 2024, six years after the changes to its operating conditions. The claims were issued in May and June 2024.

The cab drivers say section 32 applies because of alleged fraud or deliberate concealment by Uber. They contend that the limitation clock did not start before a reasonable period after 25 or 26 June 2018, when the Chief Magistrate heard Uber’s appeal over the refusal to renew its licence and identified irregularities in the way Uber had been operating prior to the March 2018 changes.

The agreed preliminary issue now set by the court is whether the claimants discovered, or could with reasonable diligence have discovered, the alleged fraud or deliberate concealment only after that June 2018 hearing. If Uber succeeds on this preliminary question, the whole claim could be time barred. If the claimants succeed, the litigation will move on with the limitation defence substantially weakened.

Five day hearing and 20 driver sample

The judge approved a five day estimate for the preliminary issue, to include judicial pre reading and a short gap before closing submissions. The parties have agreed that, for the purpose of this stage only, the primary allegations of misrepresentation will be assumed to be true, limiting the factual disputes the court needs to decide at this early stage.

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Recognising that over 13,000 black cab drivers are involved, the court also imposed a sampling exercise to keep disclosure and evidence within manageable bounds. A representative sample of 20 claimants will be selected, with 10 chosen by the claimants and 10 by the defendants. Those sample drivers will give disclosure and, if necessary, evidence on what they knew and when they knew it about Uber’s licensing and operating model.

The findings on those 20 cases will not be mechanically imposed on every other claimant. Instead, once judgment on the sample has been handed down, the parties will be invited to make written and oral submissions on how the decision should be extrapolated across the wider group, and whether any specific categories of drivers need to be treated differently.

Disclosure: lawyer instruction dates in, social media search narrowed

The ruling also deals with several contested disclosure issues. The judge accepted Uber’s request that the date on which any sample claimant first instructed solicitors or barristers on the issues in the case should be a specific disclosure topic. She held that the timing of legal instruction might shed light on when a claimant had sufficient information to justify embarking on a claim, even if the underlying instructions remain privileged.

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By contrast, the court rejected a broad requirement for sample drivers to search across social media, WhatsApp and text messages for any discussions relating to Uber and the licensing issues. Mrs Justice O’Farrell described that approach as too vague and potentially expensive for little benefit. Instead, Uber has been invited to draw up a targeted “model C” request so that any further searches are precise and focused.

Uber also sought to clarify that disclosure obligations should extend to documents obtained by drivers in their capacity as members of associations or societies. The judge declined to add extra wording, noting that if a claimant holds a document it is already caught by existing disclosure duties, regardless of how it was received, and any gaps could be cross checked against documents disclosed by trade bodies such as the LTDA.

Costs budgeting ordered despite high claim value

A key part of the ruling concerns costs management. Although claims worth more than £10 million are not routinely subject to costs budgeting, the court has discretion to order it where suitable. Here, the defendants opposed budgeting, noting the high overall claim value, the existing £14 million adverse costs cover in place for the claimants, and the extra work and cost that budgets would involve.

The claimants argued that, while the headline figure is large, each individual driver’s claim is relatively modest at around £15,000 and most claimants are private individuals. They said costs budgeting would give better visibility over the defendants’ likely costs, help manage their funding and after the event insurance, and avoid the risk of having to seek expensive top up cover later.

Mrs Justice O’Farrell accepted that costs budgeting would add to the work on both sides, but held that this was outweighed by the benefit of giving claimants clearer sight of potential adverse costs, especially if the case continues after the preliminary issue. She therefore ordered that costs budgets be prepared and managed up to the end of the preliminary issue trial.