
Uber banned in Spain - cryptoz
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30395093?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central
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kszx
The explanation "not legal because we haven't allowed it" will sound odd to
people from common law countries like US and UK (where, conversely, it's
closer to "It's legal because no law states that it's not"). But it's practice
in civil law countries like Spain, Germany etc.

I know I've simplified the difference a lot, probably oversimplified it, but I
often think of this broad distinction when I see cases like this one.

~~~
Xylakant
At least in Germany the general rule is "as long as there's no law forbidding
it, it's permitted." The problem is that there's a regulation that explicitly
puts restrictions on what requirements you need to fulfill to transport other
people for money - one of them being "needs authorization". And UberPop fails
to meet these requirements.

~~~
kszx
There's a Wikipedia article on this:

'The jocular saying is that, in England, "everything which is not forbidden is
allowed", while, in Germany, the opposite applies, so "everything which is not
allowed is forbidden". ... The saying about the Germans is at least partially
true. ...'

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_which_is_not_forbi...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_which_is_not_forbidden_is_allowed)

~~~
Xylakant
The example quoted in the wikipedia is a bit weird, the quoted paragraph deals
with the question of under which circumstances you can have owner-like rights
from something that you don't actually owned but rented (or was given to you
under similar circumstances). There may or may not be a legal edge case
involved, but it does not directly deal with "actions permitted or forbidden."

The primary difference between common law and civil law is more among the
lines that in common law systems each court decision creates a law (or is law-
like) while in civil law, the law is created by the legislative.

German courts have to follow the civil code and can't change or ignore it.
Even the german constitutional court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) can't create a
law. It may declare a law unconstitutional, but the burden of drafting a new
law falls on the Bundestag. Obviously, there will be loopholes and there's
always the question of how a given law applies to the circumstances, but even
lower courts are not bound by the decisions of higher courts in similar cases
- though usually decisions of other courts get cited in court proceedings. A
pretty famous example is the Landgericht Hamburg which is known to decide in
ways that the next higher court rejects (Oberlandesgericht Hamburg) on appeal.

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melvinmt
The thing about EU countries [1] that most American companies continually
underestimate is: the primary focus of the legal system is to protect
citizens/consumers, not companies, for better or worse. You can't escape this
as a company by simply ignoring the rules or throwing money into lobbying in
Brussels, whether you're Uber, Airbnb, Google or Microsoft.

[1] Especially the ones with a civil law system which is all of them except
the UK.

~~~
mike_hearn
I'm not sure it's helpful to describe this as the awful corporatist Americans
underestimating the strong, citizen-focussed EU.

I am a British citizen living in Europe, and I'm for one pretty happy that
Uber is trying to drag the taxi industry into the 21st century. Lots of my
friends like and use Uber (though I don't use them myself as for some reason
the app cannot verify me), I've yet to hear a single complaint about their
service.

The Spanish decision doesn't have anything directly to do with protecting
people. It was triggered by complaints by the competition, it states that Uber
is illegal because it's not authorised not because of some specifically bad
thing they're doing .... if this is defending the consumer, why doesn't it
look or feel like it?

Frankly, the chance of an Uber-like company getting started in Europe feels
close to zero. If it were up to us here to shake up the taxi business and
apply basic mobile technology to it, I'm not sure it'd ever happen at all.
America is hardly a perfect country and its people are not a perfect people,
but you must admire their drive to get things done.

~~~
exelius
In Europe you have different views of how markets should be regulated. In the
US, deregulation and free markets are the de-facto assumption, but many
European economies proudly trend more socialist than we do. Uber's typical
appeal to free market economic principles doesn't go over as well in these
markets.

The Spanish laws in play are absolutely not defending the consumer, they're
defending the worker. That's the entire point: in the US, consumer rights
often trump worker rights, but that's not the case everywhere.

~~~
Dewie
> In Europe you have different views of how markets should be regulated. In
> the US, deregulation and free markets are the de-facto assumption, but many
> European economies proudly trend more socialist than we do.

Europeans in general seem to also have a different conception of what the word
_socialist_ means, compared to Americans.

~~~
exelius
That's changing; there's no longer the USSR to provide the evil centrally
planned economy as a model. But yes, I meant socialist as in the government
owns and controls aspects of the economy, with profit maximization often not
the goal of those industries.

~~~
Dewie
> But yes, I meant socialist as in the government owns and controls aspects of
> the economy, with profit maximization often not the goal of those
> industries.

That already has a name: mixed economy.

"Socialist" in the American vernacular is too coarse grained when talking
about politics beyond its own borders, since the connotation seems to always
just be "left of American politics"... :)

~~~
exelius
I meant socialist as an adjective, not a noun. The US government has socialist
policies as well: social security, for example. Also, government ownership of
public transit, or the USPS. I agree the word is a bit inflammatory in the
American lexicon, though that is changing as all the old people die off.

------
cryptoz
> In a statement on Monday, Uber said it would "continue to offer UberPop",
> despite the threat of a fine of up to €100,00 for itself, and one of up to
> €40,000 for drivers.

Classic Uber.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Uber doesn't fear a fine for its drivers, since the drivers take the hit and
not the company.

~~~
hazz
Although according to the article it is risking a €100,000 fine on top of
€40,000 fine given to the driver. That could rack up pretty quickly if it were
on a per-violation basis.

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qwerta
Perhaps there is marked for more distributed approach.

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therobot24
no such thing as bad publicity i suppose

