DELTA Merseyside Ltd & Anor v Uber Britannia Ltd

Appellant

Tim Ward KC

Ranjit Bhose KC

(Instructed by Hogan Lovells International LLP (London))

First Respondent

Philip Kolvin KC

Jen Coyne

(Instructed by Aaron & Partners LLP (Chester))

Second Respondent

Gerald Gouriet KC

Michael Feeney

(Instructed by Capital Law Ltd (Cardiff))

Lord Briggs (with whom Lord Reed, Lord Leggatt, Lord Stephens and Lady Simler agree):

1. This appeal raises a point of construction of the regulatory regime for the provision of private hire vehicles ("PHVs") outside London and Plymouth laid down in Part II of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 as amended ("the 1976 Act"). PHVs differ from licensed taxicabs (which may ply for hire) by having to be pre-booked by a customer through a licensed operator. The issue in the appeal is whether the 1976 Act makes it unlawful for an operator to accept a booking for a PHV otherwise than by entering as principal into an immediate contract of hire with the passenger to provide the journey which is the subject of the booking.
2. The appellant, Uber Britannia Ltd ("UBL"), sought and obtained a declaration to that effect from Foster J in the High Court [2023] EWHC 1975 (KB); [2024] 1 WLR 1350, but the Court of Appeal (Lewison, Lewis and Elizabeth Laing LJJ) took the opposite view in judgments handed down on 15 July 2024 [2024] EWCA Civ 802; [2025] 1 WLR 245. UBL now appeals to this court, seeking to restore the substance of the relief which it had obtained from Foster J.
3. The issue arises in this way. Prior to 1976, when the provision of carriage by PHVs to the public was largely unregulated, save that they could not ply for hire, there was a variety of ways in which a PHV could be booked, not all of which involved the person accepting the booking undertaking any contractual liability to provide the journey the subject of the booking. I will call that person the operator, although the origin of that term may lie in the 1976 Act. The operator might, for example, offer to act as the agent of the PHV driver, incurring no personal liability ("the agency model"), or it might offer a service limited to using best endeavours to find an available driver, leaving any contract of hire to be made between the driver and the passenger at the start of the journey ("the intermediary model").
4.  PHV services provided within London are regulated by a later, differently worded but similar scheme under the Private Vehicles (London) Act 1998 ("the 1998 Act"). There is a separate regime for Plymouth, but it is of no relevance to this appeal. From the inception of its business as a PHV operator until 2022, the Uber group used a version of the agency model, the London operator being Uber London Ltd and UBL being the operator elsewhere in England and Wales.
5. In late 2021, in R (United Trade Action Group Ltd) v Transport for London [2021] EWHC 3290 (Admin); [2022] 1WLR 2043 ("the TFL case")…