French court upholds ban on Uber and criminal prosecution of Uber execs who face 2 years in prison

France's Constitutional Council has upheld a ban on UberPOP, the taxi service marketed in France by Uber, according to Le Monde.

The decision reaffirms existing French law which bans non-licensed companies from providing taxi services. Offenders are liable to criminal prosecution, and two Uber executives in France have been charged. They face up to two years in prison or a €300,000 fine.

It also underlines the way Uber's business model remains vulnerable to regulation. Uber's strategy so far has been to launch services in various countries and cities, and to then hope that the legal aspect can be fixed later. Many cities and countries have strict laws giving near-monopolies to licensed taxi companies over the right to drive paying passengers from A to B. The company has also suffered legal setbacks in California, where employment law rulings have found that its drivers may be classified as full-fledged employees and not freelancers.

Reuters reports from France (as translated by Google):

Prosecuted for the implementation of this controversial application, they will be judged in corrections in Paris for "misleading commercial practice", "complicity of illegal exercise of the taxi operator activity" and "illegal organization of a system commissioning client relationship with persons engaged in taxi activity, "among others.

Uber suspended service in France in July after violent protests by local taxi drivers. On June 29, Thibaud Simphal, the manager of Uber France, and Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, the general manager for Western Europe, were detained by French authorities. Uber had 400,000 users in the country.

Here is a report in English from AFP.