The Legal Impacts of COVID-19 in the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry

19 Elite Taxi Professional Association v. Uber Systems Spain, S.L.) and 10 April 2018 (Case C- 320/16, Uber France) 42 . While both discussed the legal nature of this platform and the service they provide, this paper will be focused only on the former, for reasons of space. Thus, although the judge initially acknowledged that an intermediary service which consisted, at the time, of connecting a non-professional driver who used his own vehicle with a person who wishes to make an urban journey 43 , constituted a service different from the transport service, since the latter consists of the physical act of moving people or goods from one place to another, using a vehicle, and, as such, could in principle be described as “an information society service”. However, it continues to point out that the service at issue which Uber provided went beyond that since, at the same time, it created a range of urban transport services which is made accessible to persons wishing tomake use of that range of services for urban travel, solely and exclusively through its app and whose general operation it organised. Furthermore, the Court found, applying the above-mentioned basic elements which allowed us to discriminate against a business activity underlying the mere intermediation in the provision of the information society service, that Uber exercised a decisive influence on the conditions of service provided by drivers. To this end, the High Court points out that: (i) Uber provided an intermediary service between drivers (then non-professionals, now holders of a VTC license) and citizens who demanded a specific journey; (ii) thus it provided both with a telematic application without which drivers would not be in a position to provide transport services and users could not demand the service; (iii) Uber set the maximum price for the race; (iv) it received payment for the customer’s race, paying only a part of it to the driver of the 42 Contrary to our opinion, authoritative doctrine has been expressed. Thus, according to VELASCO SAN PEDRO, L. A., “El transporte colaborativo Hic et Nunc”, Revista de Estudios Europeos , no. 70, 2017, p. 409, Uber has the condition of intermediary since he carries out a similar activity to that of travel agencies; BARNES, J., “Un falso dilema: Taxis vs. Uber”, Diario La Ley , no. 8942, 16 March 2017, electronic ed., pp. 3 et seq ., said that the activity of this platform is clearly described as information brokerage; while OLMEDO PERALTA, E., “Liberalizar el transporte urbano de pasajeros para permitir la competencia más allá de Taxis y VTC: Una cuestión de Política de la competencia”, Revista de Estudios Europeos , no. 70, 2017, p. 267, begins by defending Uber’s status as an intermediary between the driver (carrier) and the passenger, he ends up recognising, however, that he would act at best as a contractual carrier. For DOMÉNECH PASCUAL, G., “La regulación de la economía colaborativa (“Uber contra el taxi”)”, op. cit., p. 100, the services provided by Uber are intermediation services. 43 Service Uber Pop".