he Ministry of Transport and Communications And they responded to the requests they submitted. Uber Y Capevi before Financial auditor Against the regulations of Law No. 21553, which will regulate mobile passenger transport applications in Chile.
Undersecretary of the Ministry of Portfolio, Dennis Ramirez (c), He questioned the legal attack launched by the two mobility platforms, noting that they bore “a misinterpretation of the regulations.”
On January 12, 2024, Uber denounced that the regulations proposed by the authority “suffer from clear defects of illegality and unconstitutionality, such that they cannot enter into force.” Later, on January 25, Cabify warned that the decree “harms riders and drivers.”
In the face of the attack from the two companies, the institution, headed by the Minister, responded. Juan Carlos MuñozHe filed his defenses separately. He first responded to Uber’s letter on February 19 and seven days later did the same to Cabify’s offer.
For power, “Ride-hailing companies have been in Chile for years, offering passenger transport services without any regulation, and in fact violating legislation, This sparked a heated debate that culminated in the issuance of Law No. 21.553, which regulates paid passenger transport requests and the services provided through them, defining the requirements for companies, drivers and vehicles; operating conditions; suspension of registrations, among other things.
In response to Uber’s submission, the ministry asserted that “the claims made by the applicant are based on a misinterpretation of the regulations or a lack of understanding of the scope of the regulatory authority available to this ministry; without the alleged violations of the provisions of the law or the political charter that has been formed since then.” “It was the legislation itself that created the framework for this authority.”
He concluded that “the applicant seeks to base these alleged violations on the current situation in which his activity is conducted, without maintaining the status quo being a sufficient argument, which in this case translates into a lack of regulation.”
In the same vein, in response to Cabify’s request, the Undersecretary of the Department of Transportation confirmed that the regulation “has been the subject of rigorous analysis, in order to meet the technical reasonableness standards to which the Department is committed.”
“The allegations made by the applicant are based on a misinterpretation of the regulations, their scope and consequences; an inaccurate interpretation of the legislator’s objectives and the entity of the regulated substance or a lack of understanding of the scope of the regulatory authority enjoyed by this Ministry, without the alleged positions and/or effects being effectively formed throughout its presentation. Highlights.
In January last year, the Ministry of Transport and Communications submitted to the Office of the Financial Controller the executive regulations for Law No. 21.553, which regulates technology platforms for transportation. The law sets out a series of requirements for companies and drivers, such as a professional license that will be valid for 12 months; registration and freezing of the fleet and registration of vehicles in a public registry.
The regulations stipulated that vehicles must have a displacement equivalent to 1.4. The requirements are directly related to engine power, because with more power, the displacement must be larger and the fuel consumption must be higher.
Director, University of California Center for Surveys and Longitudinal Studies, David Bravoprepared an analysis of the impact of the so-called Uber Law on the labor market. The expert conducted a study with data on drivers and trips from the Uber app in Chile between 2013 and 2023.
In his opinion, about 88,000 people could be excluded from mobility platforms due to these greater demands that the authority seeks to impose in order to achieve equal opportunities, as the government stated, between taxi drivers and mobile application drivers.
Bravo’s study estimates that of the total number of drivers, only 18.2% of those working in December 2023 (19.6 thousand) meet the licensing, seniority and displacement requirements.
The report found that 37.2% of drivers do not meet age and engine capacity requirements, while 78.3% do not have a professional license.
