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News from Members Suciu Popa obtains an important victory for Bolt, a top international actor present on the Romanian ride-hailing market

Suciu Popa obtains an important victory for Bolt, a top international actor present on the Romanian ride-hailing market

by Suciu Popa May 26, 2021

Suciu Popa successfully represented Bolt and obtained the full dismissal of an unfair competition claim before the Romanian courts. The claim consisted in a class-action filed by an association of taxi drivers, several taxi companies as well multiple individual taxi drivers, aimed at banning the use of the „Bolt” app in Bucharest, based on various alleged unfair competition allegations.

Despite claimants’ suit being similar to the one successfully filed in Cluj against another ride-hailing company, the arguments brought forward by Suciu Popa were upheld by the court, thereby resulting in the claim being fully dismissed by the court as ungrounded and lacking merits.

The court’s decision represents a veritable landmark in this sector and is all the more important, as it clarifies concepts such as substitutability of ride-hailing and taxi services, as well as the relation between local sector regulations and the relevant EU court precedents. Such clarifications are extremely important given their novelty, as well as the fact that they enable the continuation of ride-hailing services, thereby contributing to a sustainable and reliable development of transport in Bucharest and other very crowded urban areas, as well as to the promotion of services which, through their technical optimization driven added-value are logistically efficient and help reduce environmental impact.

The team handling this dispute comprised attorneys part of the Competition and Dispute Resolution departments of Suciu Popa, led by Partner Andrei Georgescu, Co-Head of the Competition Department and Managing Associate Radu Chiran from the Dispute Resolution Department, supported by Associates Paul Manaila and Andrei Nicolae.

Suciu Popa is a top independent full-service law firm in Romania. Assuming the role to make a difference on the Romanian legal market, the Suciu Popa team brings added value to clients through deep understanding of their legal and business needs. The team draws on the strong reputation of its partners, built during over 20 years of acting for blue-chip clients including major strategic investors and investment funds, local entrepreneurs and foreign corporations, public authorities and international financial institutions in some of the largest complex cross-border transactions, milestone investment projects and dispute resolution files.

Suciu Popa covers the entire ambit of services in the areas of competition & antitrust as well as dispute resolution, being the natural choice of international and local companies for international or local projects and transactions, in a variety of mandates including dawn-raids and investigations, including in relation to abuse of dominant position and unfair competition.

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