Uber, which refers to itself as a technology company, serves to match people offering passenger transport services - who are not necessarily licensed as a taxi - with potential clients.
Lisbon’s Central Court has accepted the protective order lodged by Lisbon taxi association Antral, prohibiting the app from being used for this purpose in Portugal, the association announced on Tuesday, adding that the company must immediately take down its website for the country. On Wednesday, the managing director for Uber Portugal said he had not received any notification of the decision, and that the company had not been heard by the court.
But the tourism secretary, Adolfo Mesquita Nunes, stressed the temporary nature of the ruling.
“So far as I have understood, this is an injunction, so it’s a provisional decision,” he said, declining to comment further on the basis that he has not read the ruling or its legal basis.
Uber was set up in the US city of San Francisco in 2009 and is already present in some 140 cities in 40 or so countries, but has met corporative and official resistance in several.
“The collaborative economy is one of the challenges that the tourism sector faces and it raises a range of issues that Europe is debating and which are being discussed in the whole world,” Nunes said. He cited the case of private homes being rented out to tourists, which the government recently opted to liberalise.
Earlier, Uber Portugal’s managing director, Rui Bento, described the court ruling as “surprising” given that the company had not received any notification of the decision and indeed was not aware that an injunction was being sought.
“In Portugal we operate exclusively with licensed partners and in accordance with the legislation in force, both in Lisbon and in Porto,” he said. “Until today we have received absolutely nothing. When we do, then we shall act in line with that, but until then there’s not much we can do.”
According to Bento, the growth that the company has seen in Portugal already “indicates that Uber is filling a gap and adding something to the options for urban mobility”.
An appeal may be lodged against the court injunction, but would not suspend its effects while this is being considered.
Antral is in the meantime to start legal proceedings, which are to include a request for compensation.