Uber under the radar | The Press

Shocking revelations about Uber, Sunday: an extensive journalistic investigation carried out by several major daily newspapers – including Radio-Canada – exposes the brutal and illegal practices of the company when it was trying to establish itself on a global scale and until before our eyes, in Quebec.

Lila Dussault
The Press

“It brings up questions that everyone, I believe, asked themselves when Uber arrived on the market,” said Frédéric Prégent, CEO of Taxelco, which brings together six groups of Quebec taxis, including Taxi Diamond. and Teo Taxi. “How did Uber manage to enter a very closed and regulated market, and still with a lot of freedom? »

The British daily The Guardian obtained and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – of which Radio-Canada is a member – some 124,000 documents, dated from 2013 to 2017. These “Uber Files” include emails and messages from Uber executives at the time, as well as presentations, notes and invoices.

On Sunday, Radio-Canada, like many other media around the world, published its first report highlighting Uber’s tactics when the company tried, often aggressively, even illegally, to make its place on the global market.

“We have not justified and do not make excuses for behaviors that are inconsistent with our current values ​​as a company,” said Jill Hazelbaker, Uber’s vice president of public affairs, in a statement. a statement online on Sunday.

Killer software

In 2015, Revenu Québec agents had been investigating Uber for several weeks, reports Radio-Canada. Revenu Québec had the assumption that Uber did not collect QST, and that its drivers were encouraged to do the same.

During the raid at two company addresses in May of the same year, the company’s laptops, smartphones and tablets restarted at the same time, all of a sudden. A tactic called a “kill switch” used by Uber around the world to protect itself from government and other investigations.

The show Investigation of Radio-Canada consulted a report filed with the court concerning this search. After the outage, Revenu Québec investigators immediately turned off and then seized 14 computers and 74 company phones.

Uber’s chief executive at the time admitted he contacted Uber’s engineers at its San Francisco headquarters. These had encrypted the data remotely. A frequent practice, reveal the Uber Files.

The “kill switch” computer tool and encryption software have been used in countries such as France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Romania and India. Each time, it was when government authorities made searches, in order to interfere with investigations, without suggesting that the employees on site were involved.

Friends in high places?

The Uber Files also show the strength of Uber’s lobbying to make a name for itself despite legislative, governmental and local taxi company opposition.

In Montreal, former mayor Denis Coderre opposed the establishment of UberX from its launch in 2014, recalls Radio-Canada.

“It was perfectly anticipated and known, then sent in an internal email the head of policy for Uber in Canada. We are working with the province and Quebec City as an unofficial route around Montreal. »

For Frédéric Prégent, of Taxelco, such an assertion raises questions. “If we just talk about the Taxi market in Quebec, which was one of the most regulated markets in Canada, and if we compare Uber with the Téo Taxi project, they did not have the same openings at the time. “, he notes.

Which does not mean that there have been embezzlement on the part of our governments, specifies Mr. Prégent. “But when we see that there have been everywhere else, we can ask ourselves: how are our markets different from those of Europe? »

From Macron to the rest of the world

Surprise: the French President, Emmanuel Macron, then Minister of Economy and Industry, positioned himself as an ally of Uber in a France at the time refractory to the establishment of the company.

Uber’s top executives had a confidential meeting with Emmanuel Macron on the same day in 2014 that a law to restrict its activities came into effect.

They came out of this meeting delighted, according to the Uber Files. “The files of the Uber Files paint a portrait of Macron acting not only as a simple ally, but practically as a lobbyist for the American giant”, specifies Radio-Canada.

Uber has also offered shares to start-ups and political figures in Russia and Germany and paid researchers “hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce studies on the merits of its business model”, according to The Guardian.

With Agence France-Presse