Court documents have revealed some damning evidence of how Ola allegedly used unlawful tactics in its competition against Uber.
India is one of the fastest growing taxi markets, valued around $12 billion, and Uber and Ola are vying for the top spot. In the fight to supremacy things are bound to get dirty, and it certainly has with Uber suing Ola Cabs last month for $7.5 million (Rs 50 crore approximately). Reuters has gotten hold of the court documents, which helps paint a shady picture of the events that led to the current lawsuit.
The basis of the ongoing lawsuit at the Delhi HC is Uber’s allegations that Ola created scores of fake accounts to book cabs and then cancel the bookings once a driver had accepted. This must have not only led to disgruntled drivers, but also monetary losses since Uber has bear cancellation charges. Through the lawsuit, Uber is seeking compensation for lost revenue and goodwill.
The report says that Uber set up a seven-member team in November to investigate the unusually high number of cancellations and drivers’ complaints. After a four-month investigation, the team reportedly found that Ola had created around 94,000 fake user accounts on the Uber app, and used them to make over 400,000 false bookings and cancellations.
The investigating team traced the users’ IP address and location and found that over 600 bookings came from a building in Pune that also houses the Ola office. Another large chunk of bookings came from a tech hub is Bangalore, which too is coincidentally near an Ola office. The report says that Uber has submitted several LinkedIn profiles, Google Map locations and phone numbers from its app that are allegedly associated with Ola.
It’s not just cancelled bookings either, and Uber has also alleged unlawful interference with its registered drivers. It cites an incident on New Year’s Eve when Uber drivers in New Delhi started getting calls around 5:00PM to shut off their apps due to a technical glitch. When the drivers started the apps hours later they realized the call was never made by Uber. Court documents allege that these calls originated from two numbers associated with Ola’s customer care centers. Uber also says over 23,000 drivers have quite due to “illegal and wrongful interference” between September 2015 and February 2016.
These are some serious allegations by Uber and evidence does show that Ola has been playing a dirty game to try and monopolize the taxi market. Not surprisingly, Ola has remained defiant and has denied all the allegations. Ola has also countered saying Uber is retaliating after it filed a case against the San Francisco-based company for flouting CNG rules in the national capital.
Ever since their entry into India’s can aggregation space, both companies have regularly tried to outdo each other with unique customer offers and driver initiatives. Analysts point that Ola is currently the clear market leader with over 52 percent share, but in the last two years Uber has outpaced its rival and has garnered a 26.5 percent market share.
Source: bgr.in
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