Member Article

The Technology, Media & Telecoms Legal Bulletin (Aug. 2015) includes the following articles:

 

·         Regulate to Innovate: The Philippines Legalizes Uber Business Model

·         Antitrust Issues: The Philippine Competition Act

·         And Wi-Fi for All: The Free Public Wi-Fi Act

·         Outsourcing Update: BPOs are Finding a Home in Cebu

·         Privacy Settings: Data Privacy Act Update

 

Regulate to Innovate: The Philippines Legalizes Uber Business Model

 

What it’s about

 

Uber has been the most recent poster child of disruptive innovation; its business model refuses to fit typical parameters by which most countries regulate public transport. Like other jurisdictions, the Philippines characterize persons offering transportation services to the public as public utilities. Not only do these providers have to obtain a franchise and comply with a slew of regulations, they need to be at least 60% Filipino-owned.

 

It Ain’t Over for Uber

 

Enter Uber (sometime in 2013) whose presence on Manila’s streets quickly gained popularity among normally taxi-riding city residents. But it also gained the ire of franchise holders that saw an unregulated Uber as having an unfair advantage.

 

Legalizing Uber

 

However, a strong pro-Uber lobby has ultimately resulted in the world’s first set of rules expressly allowing and regulating “transportation network companies” or TNCs.