"Uber’s Achilles Heel: The Rule of Law," 29 July 2020

Uber and other gig companies have been aggressively promoting a business model that is quite possibly incompatible with rule of law…In in the United Kingdom, drivers launched a precedent-setting new lawsuit to demand access to their data.  The UK Supreme Court also heard arguments in…a long pending case on driver employment classification…In Australia, gig companies lost in a class action suit brought by taxi drivers…[and] this follows on a critical decision by Canada’s Supreme Court … that drivers cannot be bound by forced arbitration agreements.

… [T]hese legal battles have three fundamental implications. First, Uber and other gig companies cannot succeed if they have to operate by the same rules as other firms. Second, since their business model cannot succeed within the boundaries of law, the companies must use a defensive strategy that seeks to overturn the law rather than contest the facts. Third, to succeed in escaping legal accountability these companies must fragment disputes…resist[ing] any shift toward collective agency.

…The digital economy represents a new layer to globalization, reinforcing the ‘race to the bottom’ by allowing corporations to completely escape the bonds of rule of law. Global legal structures, which had yet to catch up to the problem of accountability in global supply chains, have been caught flat-footed by the new challenges posed by platform sector scofflaws.