Uber’s privileged access to politicians shows the lobbying system urgently needs to change | Uber

Jhe Uber files are extraordinarily revealing of the ride-sharing app’s lobbying operations across Europe. The company’s extensive and ruthless tactics were on display this week after the career lobbyist Mark MacGann, which led Uber’s efforts to convince governments, leaked thousands of documents to the Guardian. They look like a great example of corporate capture. Corporate or regulatory capture occurs when corporations dominate decision-making and are able to influence outcomes based on their interests. And, from Paris to London via Brussels, far too many politicians seem to have fallen under The fate of Uber.

Easy access to decision makers, whether face-to-face, via email or text message, has clearly been central to Uber’s lobbying strategy. The company has cultivated relationships and had fun with political leaders and ministers around the world.

Questions and answers

What are Uber Files?

Spectacle

The Uber Files are a global investigation based on a trove of 124,000 documents that were leaked to the Guardian by Mark MacGann, former chief lobbyist for Uber in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The data consists of emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges between the Silicon Valley giant’s top executives, as well as memos, presentations, notebooks, briefing notes and invoices.

The leaked records cover 40 countries and span from 2013 to 2017, when Uber was aggressively expanding across the globe. They reveal how the company has broken the law, tricked police and regulators, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments around the world.

To facilitate a global investigation in the public interest, the Guardian shared the data with 180 journalists in 29 countries through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The investigation was managed and led by the Guardian with the ICIJ.

In a reportUber said: “We have not and will not make excuses for past behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our current values. Instead, we are asking the public to judge us on what we have done over the past five years and what we will do in the years to come.”

At the EU level, Uber has had 70 meetings with the highest levels of the European Commission, including 24 with commissioners since the end of November 2014. And these are only the meetings that we know of. At the same time as the contact, the French Minister for the Economy at the time, Emmanuel Macronand its team with Uber and the informal meetings the company has had with various UK ministers, Uber has enjoyed privileged and often private access to decision-makers for too long.

Uber has never been one of the biggest spenders in the big EU tech lobby. Its lobbying expenditure, which is reported via the EU’s voluntary register of lobbyists, has increased 14 times since 2013, but from a low base. Nor did he have his own army of lobbyists.

In place, data from LobbyFacts shows that Uber has spent over a million euros since 2013 paying lobbyists and law firms to lobby on its behalf. Beyond that, Uber is a member of various industry lobby groups in Brussels that help both amplify its lobbying demands and act as a cover when it wants to operate under the radar. This is a proven tactic of big tech lobby.

And let’s not forget think tanks. In the Brussels bubble, it is almost de rigueur for big business to join think tanks and fund their work in the hope of gaining support for the lobby’s demands and, above all, for the political framing of a problem. Uber is affiliated with several focus groupsaccording to our research.

In 2014, Uber feared that its enthusiastic supporter Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner in charge of the digital agenda from 2010 to 2014, was to step down. The company therefore set out to recruit her, surely aware of the insider know-how and extensive contact books that such appointments can bring.

The European Commission has long been complacent about its revolving door problem. Despite warnings before Kroes and others left office in 2014, he resisted demands for tighter rules.

But even these lobbying tactics cannot fully explain why Uber was able to enjoy political access and influence among so many politicians. For this, we must recognize the wave of enthusiasm within EU policy circles for so-called ‘innovation’ and big tech ‘disruptors’. Policymakers have viewed platforms such as Uber, Airbnb and others as the titans of “growth and innovation” – granting them privileged access.

It’s time to tackle this type of corporate capture. Full transparency of the lobby is a prerequisite, but it is not enough on its own. We need strong rules to fight privileged access and the end of the revolving door. And we need a real debate about the power corporations wield over our political discourse. Without it, we have no hope of dealing with the climate emergency, the cost of living crisis or the power of big tech.

Ultimately, the reason Uber lobbies governments is to protect its business model. This model is based on the privatization of profits and the socialization of risks – and these “risks” include the responsibility for the labor rights of its workers. Already, there have been attempts to regulate this business model. Last year, the UK Supreme Court ruled that Uber the drivers were “workers” rather than “independent”. In the coming months, members of the European Parliament will consider a proposal to regulate worker rights for Uber and other similar platforms.

Politicians must now learn from the Uber records and break the spell.