TADA Operators Cleared of Illegal Cab Service Charges
20 February, 2020
Two chiefs of ride-hailing iphone app TADA were cleared of running an unlawful taxi service on Wednesday by the Seoul Central District Court.
Park Jae-wook, the head of VCNC which operates TADA, and Lee Jae-woong, the CEO of parent company Socar, had been charged with offering illegal taxi services disguised as chauffeured vans under laws that had didn't meet up with the Uber generation.
TADA exploited a loophole which allows vans with 11 to 15 seats to be rented for chauffeured services after attempts to perform an app-hailed cab service floundered on resistance from the conventional taxi lobby.
Lee Jae-woong (center), the CEO of TADA parent company Socar, leaves the Seoul Central District Court on Wednesday.
However the court on Wednesday accepted a "short-term rental contract" existed between TADA and its own users.
Which means TADA services will continue and the four-month legal dispute has come to a finish. The start-up community in Korea was ecstatic, saying the law clearly came down on the side of the future.
But not all uncertainties have disappeared, since prosecutors can still appeal, while lawmakers keen to truckle to the taxi-driver vote are thinking about a new law to ban ride-sharing programs altogether and maroon Korea within the last century.
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