Uber fined $7.6bn in California for failure to report driver data

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has fined Uber $7.6bn (£5.3bn, €7bn) for failure to report driver data. While planning to appeal against the ruling, Uber has decided to pay the fine in order to avoid a 30-day suspension of its services in its home state.

The fine is based on a US administrative law judge's 2015 recommendation that Uber be fined and its services be suspended within the state of California for not reporting driver data to the appropriate authorities. The judge had said that Uber drivers were not providing the company's transportation services in a fair manner, suggesting that they were being discriminatory based on the customers' location.

Commenting on the CPUC's decision, an Uber spokesperson said: "While we are disappointed by the decision, we look forward to making our case to the California Court of Appeals." The firm will, in the meantime, keep working "in good faith" with the commission. It has already submitted all driver data as ordered, although it does not agree with the commission on how the $7.6bn fine was calculated, according to a report by the LA Times.

The fine, along with an additional contempt charge, was imposed on one of Uber's subsidiary companies, Raiser-CA. The ruling comes close on the heels of another recent judgment against it, which demanded that Uber customers in California be refunded $1.8m for charging extra fees to transport customers to the airport.

San Francisco-based Uber, which was recently valued at $62.5bn (£43.4bn, €57.5bn), has been handed some unfavourable rulings by the state government regarding its business practices.