Uber has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit in Australia for $271.8 million Australian dollars ($178.3 million USD), according to the law firm representing the case on behalf of taxi and other hired drivers in the country.
The lawsuit was filed in 2019 in the the Supreme Court of Australia’s Victoria state on behalf of over 8,000 car service owners and drivers who allegedly lost income and saw their license values decrease when the ride-sharing app entered the market.
“This case succeeded where others have failed — we’re proud that thousands of people put their faith in us to deliver this outcome, and to hold Uber to account,” the law firm Maurice Blackburn Lawyers said in a statement.
This is Australia’s fifth-largest settlement in its history, according to the firm.
“Since 2018, Uber has made significant contributions into various state-level taxi compensation schemes, and with today’s proposed settlement, we put these legacy issues firmly in our past,” Uber said in a statement.
It’s the latest in a mix of legal wins and losses for the company. In December, Uber succeeded in a lawsuit against 2,500 taxi drivers in France. A court in the country ruled the company did not commit unfair competition acts, the BBC reported.
Last week, Uber and rival Lyft announced that hey would both stop operating in Minneapolis starting May 1 over a dispute with the city council over how to calculate the minimum wage for the companies’ drivers.
Still, these legal battles have not stopped the company from making money. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Uber announced that it reached its first annual profit — $1.8 million— since it went public in 2019.