Taxi drivers fail in bid for compensation over licence deregulation

munchkin_utd

THE High Court has dismissed a challenge by three taxi-drivers who claimed the value of their taxi plates was wiped out when the sector was deregulated in 2000.

Mr Muldoon and Mr Kelly claimed the Minister and the State acted beyond his powers by delegating the role of deciding on the number of licences to the local authorities and in breach of their right to earn a livelihood and their constitutional rights.
<snip>
Mr Justice Peart was completely satisfied it was within the Minister's powers to delegate regulatory powers to local authorities.

He also found the regulations did not interfere "much less unjustly attack" the taxi-men's right to earn a livelihood. "They could continue to earn their livelihood", he said. It was therefore not necessary for him to address the issue of whether they were entitled to recover damages for breach of a constitutional right.

The judge said in his view they were also not in a position to bring a claim for breach of statutory duty by the defendants. Each of them entered the market voluntarily, in the knowledge, to be implied to them if necessary, that the regulatory regime could change and that there was a risk involved that in buying their licences they would not hold their value, he said.

<snip>
The fact that a secondary market had evolved (in the sale of licences for large sums) as an incidental consequence of the regulations in operation at the time was in the judge's view irrelevant to the court's considerations.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/taxi-drivers-lose-challenge-over-claim-value-of-taxi-plates-decreased-with-sector-deregulation-31614805.html

I am surprised at the ruling, seeing as the irish courts are so generous and soft hearted when it comes to granting people compensation for every class of minor matter

But for the public, this is a good ruling as the government cant be held to ransom by people claiming to be disadvantaged by the country making a bit of progress or change.

coylemj

munchkin_utd wrote: »

But for the public, this is a good ruling as the government cant be held to ransom by people claiming to be disadvantaged by the country making a bit of progress or change.

+1 The judge effectively told them that they entered the market (to buy & sell plates) as speculators so they had no case just because the market went the wrong way.

They lost, tough.

Anyway, wasn't deregulation forced on the minister so how could the Govt be sued for simply obeying the law?

worded

I recall standing in the Dame St taxi queue for 2+ hours to 5am on a cold sat winters morn. I said to the person next to me, in the next 10 mins I will need either an ambulance or a taxi.

Now there is no problem, somebody did something right

munchkin_utd

The "taxpayer" (which BTW I hate as a phrase seeing as nearly half of the 1.8million workers in Ireland dont pay any tax, let alone the other 3.5 non working in Ireland) has just avoided the potential of a 400million payout according to old news reports .

The State will be faced with a bill of at least €400m if the High Court rules taxi drivers can be compensated for deregulation.

The potential liability was revealed in a briefing document prepared for new Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe.
More than 1,100 taxi drivers have lodged claims that the value of their taxi plates were wiped out overnight when the sector was deregulated in 2000.

A High Court ruling is currently awaited on three test cases.
In a note marked "confidential", officials warned Mr Donohoe, who became minister last month, that "if established legal principal was to be overturned, the State could be faced with claims in excess of €400m".

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/taxpayer-faces-400m-bill-over-taxi-driver-case-30507482.html

munchkin_utd

The "taxpayer" (which BTW I hate as a phrase seeing as nearly half of the 1.8million workers in Ireland dont pay any tax, let alone the other 3.5 non working in Ireland) has just avoided the potential of a 400million payout according to old news reports .

The State will be faced with a bill of at least €400m if the High Court rules taxi drivers can be compensated for deregulation.

The potential liability was revealed in a briefing document prepared for new Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe.
More than 1,100 taxi drivers have lodged claims that the value of their taxi plates were wiped out overnight when the sector was deregulated in 2000.

A High Court ruling is currently awaited on three test cases.
In a note marked "confidential", officials warned Mr Donohoe, who became minister last month, that "if established legal principal was to be overturned, the State could be faced with claims in excess of €400m".

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/taxpayer-faces-400m-bill-over-taxi-driver-case-30507482.html

GM228

coylemj wrote: »

+1 The judge effectively told them that they entered the market (to buy & sell plates) as speculators so they had no case just because the market went the wrong way

Very true, it would be like people sueing banks/investment companies for losses on bonds/stock exchange etc.

I'd say a lot of taxi drivers will be annoyed at been classed as speculators though.

GM228

delahuntv

The late Seamus Brennan TD warned taxi drivers many years back that deregulation would come and that taxi licences would be available to everyone.

At the time, (around 1990) a license was going for about £50k and they dropped to under 30k, so taxis had plenty of notice that deregulation was on the cards and they only have themselves to blame.

coylemj

I do feel sorry for the widows of taxi drivers who held on on to their husband's plate and rented it out to cosies (drivers with PSV licences but no licensed taxi), the plate owners saw their income suddenly dry up when the cosies were able to go out and buy their own plates. However they had a choice of selling the plate or keeping it for the income and they made the wrong decision. Ivor Callely and the taxi drivers themselves seemed to think that that system would go on forever which was living in fantasy land.

Two situations investors are advised to avoid investing in: (1) a business with a majority shareholder - because he can starve you of dividends and force you to sell to him at his price and (2) a business subject to Government regulation where a change in the regulatory environment can have devastating and unforeseen consequences.

Mr.Frame

delahuntv wrote: »

The late Seamus Brennan TD warned taxi drivers many years back that deregulation would come and that taxi licences would be available to everyone.

At the time, (around 1990) a license was going for about £50k and they dropped to under 30k, so taxis had plenty of notice that deregulation was on the cards and they only have themselves to blame.

Don't know where you are getting your information from? Bertie Ahern said 2 months before deregulation that he was not in favour of it , nor could he see it coming.
As for saying the taxi drivers only have themselves to blame, quite frankly that is a silly thing to say , They had no clue it was going to happen.

Going Forward

coylemj wrote: »

Two situations investors are advised to avoid investing in: (1) a business with a majority shareholder - because he can starve you of dividends and force you to sell to him at his price and (2) a business subject to Government regulation where a change in the regulatory environment can have devastating and unforeseen consequences.

Genuinely good advice.
But I can't help thinking that if it was anything to do with agriculture, compensation or assiatance would be the order of the day.

devnull

Speculation of any kind is a dangerous game, you know when you engage in it whilst you can make money you can also lose it too.

J.pilkington

Going Forward wrote: »

Genuinely good advice.
But I can't help thinking that if it was anything to do with agriculture, compensation or assiatance would be the order of the day.

You mean like the recent abolition of the milk quotas!!

You couldn't have picked a worse industry for your argument

delahuntv

Mr.Frame wrote: »

Don't know where you are getting your information from? Bertie Ahern said 2 months before deregulation that he was not in favour of it , nor could he see it coming.
As for saying the taxi drivers only have themselves to blame, quite frankly that is a silly thing to say , They had no clue it was going to happen.

I remember it quite clearly myself and if you do a search it shows up in a paper written by some guy about competition and privatisation.

For taxis to think that their cartel would continue for ever was poorly judged.

To think that back in the nineties you could walk from city center to Dundrum quicker than the time you'd get a taxi was a hint.

Mr.Frame

delahuntv wrote: »

I remember it quite clearly myself and if you do a search it shows up in a paper written by some guy about competition and privatisation.

For taxis to think that their cartel would continue for ever was poorly judged.

To think that back in the nineties you could walk from city center to Dundrum quicker than the time you'd get a taxi was a hint.

I don't have to do a search, as the bold Bertie told me himself he wasn't in favour of deregulation and it wouldn't happen. Not like Bertie to tell a lie hah!

As for walking home to Dundrum, well that was the fault of the Government in not providing buses,or trains, Dart to run after midnight.

You could get into town by taxi, bus, train, dart but after midnight the only way you could get home was by taxi.That shouldn't have happened and the taxis took the hit and the blame.
As a tax payer , your taxes go towards public transport so people shouldnhave demanded other means of transport instead of the taxis getting all the blame.
Deregulation was a cheap way out for the government.
Before deregulation Dublin had approx. 2700 taxis ,that was more taxis per head of population than London.
Now Dublin has more taxis than New York, which is farcical .

delahuntv

I love the way taxi people use the "more taxis per head" argument.

Add in the huge visitor population in london and check the parameters of the population.

At the end of the day the taxi service was utter crap. The only answer was deregulation to rid the city of the cartel that meant high fares and appalling service.

Thankfully these days the service is quite good and provides value - making it more user friendly.

newacc2015

Uber and Haillo was going to eventually going to destroy the value of their taxi plates too. Look at how NYC taxi medallions have started to dropped in value recently

AlanG

A lot of people here don't seem to know how the market was deregulated. The government never deregulated. A judge passed a judgement that the regulation the Government had in place was actually illegal. Legislation passed after that was actually to bring back some legal regulation.

This case was about people who had paid up to 100k for a license having it devalued a couple of weeks later due to a the fact that the legislation that created that market was illegal. A significant number of young people who made a massive commitment to starting a business got screwed by this. On another forum these people, many of whom had few other opportunities would be commended for taking a risk with a business but instead because most of us had to stand in a queue for several hours around Christmas (due to the council not issuing enough licenses) there is still a lot of gloating about how these people had their livelihoods ruined.

Mr.Frame

delahuntv wrote: »

I love the way taxi people use the "more taxis per head" argument.

Add in the huge visitor population in london and check the parameters of the population.

At the end of the day the taxi service was utter crap. The only answer was deregulation to rid the city of the cartel that meant high fares and appalling service.

Thankfully these days the service is quite good and provides value - making it more user friendly.

So, stating facts as in "more taxis per head " is an argument ?
Well the answer wasn't deregulation,it was the governments cheap way out. they should have invested in a better transportation system and not leave it down to taxi drivers.
Your reasoning that the only answer was dereg., to rid the city of the cartel that meant "high fares", is totally incorrect.

Terrontress

I used to work in AIB and I remember a senior commercial manager there tell me at the time of deregulation that he would never lend money on a taxi licence, and would never allow someone reporting in to him to do likewise. And that was going back twenty years because he knew they had no intrinsic value.

I had just arrived in Dublin back in those days and most of the taxi drivers I spoke to were delighted. They were all cosying licences, paying a fortune to licence owners who made a fortune without setting foot outside their doors. One guy was telling me about going on holiday to the Isle of Man and having to pay the licence owner while he was away, even though he knew someone else would be working the licence in his absence. The licence owner would go to Florida for his holidays.

From what I can tell, the value of the licence was just to do with its scarcity. Nothing else. It's the same as that Kyle Bass and his patent. Nobody would weep if peoples' demands for that product were met efficiently and economically, even if it left him out in the cold.

Losty Dublin

Terrontress wrote: »

I used to work in AIB and I remember a senior commercial manager there tell me at the time of deregulation that he would never lend money on a taxi licence, and would never allow someone reporting in to him to do likewise. And that was going back twenty years because he knew they had no intrinsic value.

I had just arrived in Dublin back in those days and most of the taxi drivers I spoke to were delighted. They were all cosying licences, paying a fortune to licence owners who made a fortune without setting foot outside their doors. One guy was telling me about going on holiday to the Isle of Man and having to pay the licence owner while he was away, even though he knew someone else would be working the licence in his absence. The licence owner would go to Florida for his holidays.

From what I can tell, the value of the licence was just to do with its scarcity. Nothing else. It's the same as that Kyle Bass and his patent. Nobody would weep if peoples' demands for that product were met efficiently and economically, even if it left him out in the cold.

A simple good read of how it was. Licences are permissions and thus are at best very very loose assets. The plate owners at the time knew that there was a gross inertia to issue more licences by the powers that be. In Ireland this was devolved to local councils who had the power to issue plates. The longer the inertia stayed the more the plate price grew and grew. Eventually it came to the stage whereby the licence holders knew would lose out if things changed and resisted a lot of the proposed changes; can't say I'd blame them either given the money they had riding on it.

The Humphries case saw the end of the plate limits which created the artificial highs of plate. Before then big changes were on the way but in a more balanced way. What ended up happening after the High Court case was not what was envisaged and was badly managed by all involved. The Taxi Regulators office came in almost 4 years too late and at a critical time in the market when the issues of oversupply and a lack of regulation were obvious, it's lack of direction was evident for all to see.

One of the days I'll actually write that book about the industry and finally make some money out of the business

end of the road

munchkin_utd wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/taxi-drivers-lose-challenge-over-claim-value-of-taxi-plates-decreased-with-sector-deregulation-31614805.html

I am surprised at the ruling, seeing as the irish courts are so generous and soft hearted when it comes to granting people compensation for every class of minor matter

But for the public, this is a good ruling as the government cant be held to ransom by people claiming to be disadvantaged by the country making a bit of progress or change.

what nonsense. the government could never be "held to ransom by people claiming to be disadvantaged by the country making a bit of progress or change" . any suggestion that the ruling has stopped something that never did or could happen from happening has no basis in reality. these people were disadvantaged by having to hand over amounts of money in the first place that they should have never have had to hand over to be part of the taxi industry. they should never have been in that position in the first place, they should have simply had to pass the checks and tests and nothing more as is the case now. this ruling is not good news for the public as it means the government can have rules meaning amounts of money must be turned over to them to run your business and then wipe away that money by de-regulation. i don't believe these drivers would have known that de-regulation was a possibility when they decided to go into the industry. i'm not one bit surprised at the ruling but challenging it on a constitutional basis was probably never going to work out for them.

coylemj wrote: »

+1 The judge effectively told them that they entered the market (to buy & sell plates) as speculators so they had no case just because the market went the wrong way.

They lost, tough.

Anyway, wasn't deregulation forced on the minister so how could the Govt be sued for simply obeying the law?

its not tough at all. there was no market, just extreme regulation by the government. how can one be a speculator when there was no market, but forced regulation of the industry at the time? any nonsense of them being like bond holders and the like is just that. nonsense.

devnull wrote: »

Speculation of any kind is a dangerous game, you know when you engage in it whilst you can make money you can also lose it too.

being forced to hand over money to a government to be part of an industry you want to be part of is not speculation. its simply taking part in the regulatory requirements. if the government decide to not keep their part of the deal then they should either compensate those they forced to hand over ridiculous amounts of money, or implement something that such people will except. of course the extreme regulatory requirements should never have been there in the first place putting early drivers who wanted to be part of the industry in that position.

coylemj

end of the road wrote: »

its not tough at all. there was no market, just extreme regulation by the government. how can one be a speculator when there was no market ....

What rubbish! Of course there was a market, taxi plates were advertised for sale every day in the papers. Or were you so blinkered in your attitude that you didn't notice?

end of the road wrote: »

any nonsense of them being like bond holders and the like is just that. nonsense.

You're the one talking nonsense. And who the hell mentioned bondholders anyway? More nonsense.

bk

Mr.Frame wrote: »

Now Dublin has more taxis than New York, which is farcical .

This claim is also rather bull****.

It only counts the yellow taxis which are the only taxis you can hail in Manhattan. It completely ignores the tens of thousands of Green Taxis that operate throughout the rest of New York City and the black car services that the vast majority of New Yorkers use.

The reality is even if their wasn't deregulation, the Taxi industry would still be in major trouble now. You would likely have seen Halio and Uber operate with Hackneys, thus making taxi plates valueless anyway.

ohnonotgmail

end of the road wrote: »

what nonsense. the government could never be "held to ransom by people claiming to be disadvantaged by the country making a bit of progress or change" . any suggestion that the ruling has stopped something that never did or could happen from happening has no basis in reality. these people were disadvantaged by having to hand over amounts of money in the first place that they should have never have had to hand over to be part of the taxi industry. they should never have been in that position in the first place, they should have simply had to pass the checks and tests and nothing more as is the case now. this ruling is not good news for the public as it means the government can have rules meaning amounts of money must be turned over to them to run your business and then wipe away that money by de-regulation. i don't believe these drivers would have known that de-regulation was a possibility when they decided to go into the industry. i'm not one bit surprised at the ruling but challenging it on a constitutional basis was probably never going to work out for them.



its not tough at all. there was no market, just extreme regulation by the government. how can one be a speculator when there was no market, but forced regulation of the industry at the time? any nonsense of them being like bond holders and the like is just that. nonsense.


being forced to hand over money to a government to be part of an industry you want to be part of is not speculation. its simply taking part in the regulatory requirements. if the government decide to not keep their part of the deal then they should either compensate those they forced to hand over ridiculous amounts of money, or implement something that such people will except. of course the extreme regulatory requirements should never have been there in the first place putting early drivers who wanted to be part of the industry in that position.

the large sums of money that people were paying for taxi licences before deregulation was not going to the government. It was going to existing licence holders. Your argument is as watertight as a sieve.

end of the road

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

the large sums of money that people were paying for taxi licences before deregulation was not going to the government. It was going to existing licence holders. Your argument is as watertight as a sieve.

the government were responsible for the situation because of their extreme regulation. so therefore, its their fault regardless.

ohnonotgmail

end of the road wrote: »

the government were responsible for the situation because of their extreme regulation. so therefore, its their fault regardless.

nonsense as per usual.

AlanG

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

nonsense as per usual.

As mentioned in my post above it was the governments illegal regulation that caused the problem. If the market was regulated legally it could have been loosened in a controlled manner. As they were deemed to have regulated illegally they caused a mess in the market which caused a lot of enterprising and hard working people to lose their livelihoods.

ohnonotgmail

AlanG wrote: »

As mentioned in my post above it was the governments illegal regulation that caused the problem. If the market was regulated legally it could have been loosened in a controlled manner. As they were deemed to have regulated illegally they caused a mess in the market which caused a lot of enterprising and hard working people to lose their livelihoods.

i wasnt responding to your post.

seamus

end of the road wrote: »

the government were responsible for the situation because of their extreme regulation. so therefore, its their fault regardless.

If it's the government's fault that the plates dropped in value, then logically it's their fault that they increased in value too. Therefore since the government are to blame for the ups and the downs, they cancel out and nobody is due any compensation.

The government put no value on the plates beyond the initial purchase price from the council, and therefore nobody was required to pay more than this amount to become a taxi driver. Those that did, created the false value in the plates in the first place. If nobody was willing to spend stupid amounts on their plates in the first place, their value wouldn't have changed.

The original oversight was failing to make the plates non-transferable so when a driver dies or retires, his plate goes back into the pot and can't be sold onto anyone else.

end of the road

seamus wrote: »

If it's the government's fault that the plates dropped in value, then logically it's their fault that they increased in value too. Therefore since the government are to blame for the ups and the downs, they cancel out and nobody is due any compensation.

The government put no value on the plates beyond the initial purchase price from the council, and therefore nobody was required to pay more than this amount to become a taxi driver. Those that did, created the false value in the plates in the first place. If nobody was willing to spend stupid amounts on their plates in the first place, their value wouldn't have changed.

The original oversight was failing to make the plates non-transferable so when a driver dies or retires, his plate goes back into the pot and can't be sold onto anyone else.

it was still the governments fault for their extreme regulation and failures which engineered the situation. the government are responsible, nobody else.

Uriel.

end of the road wrote: »

it was still the governments fault for their extreme regulation and failures which engineered the situation. the government are responsible, nobody else.

You say the same about about everything.