Ride-Share Gigant Uber filed a lawsuit against Doordash on Friday and accused the supply equipment of stifling competition by intimidating restaurant owners in exclusive deals.
Uber claims in the court case, submitted to the Superior Court of California, which only work with Doordash his most important rival restaurants. Uber claims that Doordash, which has the majority of the food delivery market in the US, threatens restaurants with fines of millions of dollars or the removal or relegation of the position of companies on the Doordash app.
In particular, Uber Doordash restaurants claims to conclude exclusive or almost exclusive agreements for delivery services in the Firsty, which means that Doordash is on it to only process orders that are placed via own websites of restaurants, says Uber.
“Uber’s case has no merit,” said a spokesperson for Doordash in an e -mail to Techcrunch on Friday. “Their claims are unfounded and based on their inability to offer sellers, consumers or couriers a quality alternative.”
Doordash and Uber Eats are best known for their respective apps to connect restaurant, consumers and employees of the gig economy. Consumers use the apps to find and order food such as pizza, egg rolls or pad Thai from restaurants. A Gig -Economy employee then picks up and supplies the food to the consumer.
But the two companies also compete with their own white label delivery services-uber directly and Doordash Drive on-Demand-Die both were launched in 2020. These services are cheaper for restaurants, so that customers can order directly from the own apps of the restaurants and websites, while Uber and Doordash manage the couriers behind the scenes.
Uber claims in his lawsuit that Doordash First-Party processes deliveries for more than 90% of the largest business restaurants in America, and claims that Doordash has used anti-competitive practices to win the market.
“More than 1 million traders work together with Uber Eats because we helped them to reach more customers and have given them the freedom to decide how they want their companies to grow with delivery,” Sarfraz Maredia, head of America for delivery to Uber, said in an e -mail statement. “We have increasingly heard complaints from restaurants that limit the tactics of Doordash that freedom and punish them for the search for better options. We hope that this application will put an end to those unfair practices, so that restaurants can choose what is best for them without fear of punishment or retribution. “
In an example of the lawsuit, Uber says that a public ‘important restaurant company’ told the company that it would not continue with a long -planned roll -out of Uber directly in various of the restaurant brands. The reason, says Uber, is because Doordash reportedly threatened to increase the rates that the restaurant company charges to use the delivery services of Doordash if the Uber continued to use immediately.
Uber says that this was not a one -off event, but rather that several customers have told the company that they have the feeling: ‘As if they have a’ gun to their head ‘, that Doordash is a’ monopolist ‘and that they are being bullied by Doosdash . “
Uber has asked for a jury right of jury; The company has not specified the amount of damage in the complaint. However, Uber claims that these anti -competitive practices have cost the company “millions of dollars in income” and also immediately limited Uber’s growth.