The delivery fees charged by Uber Eats continue to be debated in court.
Posted at 6:30 a.m.
The case is not about the amounts billed when you are dying to eat a poutine without moving. Solely on how the information is presented online.
The big question that the judge may have to decide is therefore the following: when using the Uber Eats platform, do you buy a meal and a delivery service, or a delivered meal?
See the subtlety of the debate…
We don’t know yet if it will take place, notice. The Superior Court must decide whether or not to authorize a class action in light of the arguments presented to it last Tuesday.
Lambert Avocats claims that the Consumer Protection Act is violated when mandatory delivery charges are added at the very end of the purchase process, since it is prohibited to sell a good or service at a price higher than that advertised.
The Uber Eats platform, for its part, maintains that it sells food at the advertised price, and that it sells its delivery service at the advertised price. “The law does not oblige the merchant to announce at the same time as the price of the good the price of the additional services chosen by the customer”, pleaded Mr.e François Giroux, of McCarthy Tétrault, one of the lawyers representing Uber Eats.
If you feel like you’ve heard of this story before, that’s normal. We are back to square one following an unexpected and unusual turnaround.
For the record, a class action had indeed been authorized at the end of 2021. But the agreement of $ 200,000 concluded between Uber Eats and the firm Lambert Avocats, which was to close the case, had been rejected by the Superior Court. In the process, the judge canceled the authorization, hence the resumption of the argument.
It was law students and law professors, in particular, who opposed this regulation. Because it didn’t include any payments to Uber Eats’ 1.9 million customers and because the sum was paltry compared to their number.
Without this objection, the sum of $200,000 would have been paid in fees to the lawyers, to the Fonds d’aide aux actions collectives (FAAC) and to charities.
Lambert Avocats had defended the agreement by affirming that the probabilities of success of the collective action were uncertain given the absence of case law. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.
Given this admission, the group of students from the University of Montreal who challenged the agreement expected the file to be closed. “We were all flabbergasted when we learned that Lambert was coming back to the attack,” confided to me one of the members of the group, Marie-Ève Maillé. Of course, the lawyer for Uber Eats did not fail to remind the judge that his opponent himself believed very little in his chances of success.
It will be interesting to see how far this cause will go. Who it will benefit. What it will change for Quebecers. One of the objectives of collective action in terms of consumption is to clean up practices. A decade ago, Air Canada added fees of all kinds to its tickets, so the price displayed had nothing to do with the actual price. This is no longer the case. And we are happy about it.
In the case of Uber Eats, which has already modified its website so that the delivery costs are clear from the outset, it should be noted, one can question the interest of using already overwhelmed judicial resources to hold a “meal + delivery or meal delivered” debate. the lawyer Jimmy Ernst Jr Laguë-Lambert sees in it the opportunity to create case law, he told me. This is commendable, defensible. The number of people affected is also very high.
But beyond the legal issues, this case raises others on a practical level. Isn’t it reasonable to expect, when buying a meal or a sweater online, to be charged for delivery? Isn’t it desirable to know the amount that will have to be paid for this service?
One of the solutions to respect the spirit of the law which prohibits “fragmented” prices is to include the cost of delivery, suggested Lambert Avocats, in court. It’s already happening.
St-Hubert and Benny&Co. use this strategy. But is it ideal? Not really. Unless you take the time to compare prices in store, you never know that you paid $3.45 for the delivery of your brisket with fries. The law is respected, but at the expense of transparency. Worse, such delivery costs add up when choosing multiple items. In the end, a fixed price may be more affordable.
And if we forced the display of prices including delivery, would clothing stores, hardware stores and grocery stores be subject to it?
No one can predict the outcome of the action against Uber Eats, but the effects of a possible judgment should not cause more harm than good to consumers.