Uber convicted, fined in French trial over taxi practices

PARIS, France -- A French court has convicted Uber and two of its executives of deceptive commercial practices and illegal business activity over its lowest-cost ride service.

The court fined the company 800,000 euros ($907,000) and fined regional Uber executive Pierre-Dimitry Gore-Coty 30,000 euros, and Uber's France general manager Thibaud Simphal 20,000 euros. Half of all the fines were suspended.

The court did not hand prison terms, and rejected a prosecutor's request that the two executives be barred from running any company for five years.

And the fines were much lower than the 100 million euros that traditional taxi services had sought. They accused the low-cost UberPop service of unfair competition because it uses non-professional drivers. UberPop is now banned in France but Uber still operates a service with professional drivers.