The head of policy at Uber says his firm will pay the penalties of more than 30 drivers fined by the Victorian government's taxi commissioner this month.
The fines were handed out as part of a crackdown on drivers using the smartphone app's "ride-sharing" feature.
The pledge will be welcome news for Uber ride-sharing drivers. One said he was concerned his contract with Uber meant it did not have an obligation to pay their $1732 fine.
"I don't think Uber will pay the fine for me; they are not responding to my emails," the driver, who did not wish to be named, told Fairfax Media earlier this month when the fines were issued by the Victorian Taxi Service Commission. The commission regulates taxis and private hire cars.
"I have read the terms and conditions and the drivers are totally f---ed," the driver said.
As of earlier this month about $60,000 worth of fines had been issued.
Uber is a smartphone app that, in addition to providing taxis and private hire-car services, allows any motorist – not necessarily a licensed taxi or hire-car driver – to be paid for providing lifts.
The company was launched in 2009 and is based in the United States. It now has offices in 115 cities across 35 countries. It was valued at $3.5 billion last year, Bloomberg reported.
In Australia it recently expanded from having a Sydney office to having one in Melbourne, Brisbane, and now Perth.
The company has 900 employees, and takes a 20 per cent commission from its drivers.
Earlier this month, Fairfax revealed that officers from the Victorian Taxi Services Commission had been using the ride-sharing feature in the Uber app to take rides, in order to identify drivers.
At least 30 unlicensed drivers were issued with fines, taxi commissioner Graeme Samuel said, with more expected to be issued. Until now, it was unclear whether Uber would pay the fines.
Corey Owens, the head of global public policy at Uber, on Thursday addressed the International Transport Forum in Leipzig, Germany.
Mr Owens said Uber had experienced repeated battles in its five-year history with local and state governments in several countries over whether drivers had the right to pick up passengers.
Asked about the fines handed to Melbourne drivers by the taxi commission, Mr Owens pledged this his company would "pay every one of those tickets".
"It is crazy that someone got a $1700 ticket in Melbourne for providing a service that is faster and cheaper than a taxi. Nothing about that to me feels criminal, nothing about that feels bad for the consuming public," Mr Owens said.
When Uber's Sydney general manager David Rohrsheim was asked via email earlier this month whether Uber would pay the $1700 fines, he forwarded Fairfax's inquiry to Uber Melbourne general manager Simon Rossi.
Mr Rossi responded to the inquiry but did not directly answer the question, and accidentally included advice from Mr Rohrsheim which said that Mr Rohrsheim recommended "not answering the question and instead issuing a pro Uber pro choice pro city pro innovation message".
Uber is among a growing field of apps that circumvent taxi companies' booking systems and connect drivers directly with passengers. The app allows passengers to rate drivers, in much the same way as apps in other sectors allow ratings of service providers, such as TripAdvisor or Airbnb.
The Victorian Taxi Association represents taxi operators and network service providers, and its chief executive David Samuel said third-party car booking apps like Uber must be regulated by the same legal standards as established taxi companies.
New competitors entering the market had to follow the law, Mr Samuel said. "Finding that the law does not align with your business plan does not justify completely disregarding it. The notion that regulation only exists to protects incumbents is nothing more than another cynical justification not to comply."
He said Victoria has gone through a "rigorous deregulation process" over the last five years. "The state's regulations that remain are there to protect the safety of customers and drivers, not the commercial position of various suppliers new or old."
But Uber's Mr Owens said that, in cities all around the world when smartphone apps like his firm's were introduced, existing companies with much to lose would protest. He said such protests had "succeeded in defending a broken system for 300 years".
He said most cities lacked the "political will to actually do something about" their dysfunctional taxi industries unless they were pushed hard.
"But fortunately there are examples of cities and countries and states who are willing to say 'What we have done before has not served our population well, and it's time for us to let new, big bold ideas play out'."
Mr Owens said his company "regularly encounters some kind of resistance, either from the local industry, which has benefited from regulations that protect them for a very long time, or the regulators themselves".
This resistance, "given enough time", would dissolve because consumers could see they would get a better deal, he said.
Mr Owens said the stringent regulations surrounding existing taxi licensing in many cities creates "these licences that sort of say 'Well if they have this then they must be safe'. But ... every one of you comes from a city with a rich history of violence or danger involving taxi cabs. I don't think that's an indictment of taxis, it is just that we have built an imperfect system."
Clay Lucas travelled to Leipzig as a guest of the OECD, Ben Grubb travelled to San Francisco as a guest of Cisco.
