Istanbul 10th Commercial Court of First Instance has ruled that Uber transportation company shall stop operations on the grounds of creating unfair competition. The court also ruled that access to uber.com and the app shall be blocked. The verdict came upon the lawsuit against Uber filed by the Istanbul‘s United Taxi Association and Istanbul Motoring Artisans’ Chamber.
The ride hailing app which has been active in Turkey since 2014, announced on May 31 that it canceled UberXL. Since then, it has been continuing its operations with its partners using yellow and turquoise colored taxis.
Uber previously stated that it had over four million users, 12 thousand UberXL drivers and 6 thousand partner companies in Turkey. It operates in more than 700 cities in 63 countries.
An estimated 17K+ official yellow taxis operate in Turkey’s most populous city. They contribute a lot to the city’s very busy transport system. However, most taxi-owners and operators as well as the United Taxi Association are criticized as being “rogue” and trying to keep their monopoly on the lucrative market with no slightest intention or efforts to improve poor quality service and eliminate frequent cases of overcharging.
The coverage of Istanbul taxi network is patchy, vehicles dilapidated and drivers notoriously rude, according to many commuters as well as media people. Unlike in most other countries, in Turkey Uber had generally been the same price as a normal taxi or slightly more expensive.