The US-based taxi company said it will be appealing to today’s court decision and that Uber Portugal's services will remain active in Lisbon as Uber Portugal is not mentioned in the court process.
"We received the confirmation from the Court that the precautionary measures imposed on Uber Technologies Inc. will remain in place," read a company statement this afternoon.
Management of Uber Portugal said it has "a hard time understanding this decision, since the target entity in this process, Uber Technologies Inc., operates in the United States, so we will appeal this decision in order to clarify the situation."
Nothing has changed as far as the customer is concerned with Uber taxis remaining on call in Oporto and Lisbon as before.
Uber Portugal has reaffirmed its commitment to “continue a constructive dialogue with the Government and the transport sector to create a modern legal framework appropriate to the interests of consumers and the Portuguese economy."
The association representing Portugal’s taxi drivers has called on Uber to "have the sense to respect judicial decisions and not to persist as they have done in Spain, France and other European countries, by forging ahead which is unfortunate and irresponsible."
Such is the horror with which Uber is viewed by Portugal’s threatened taxi drivers and vote-seeking politicians that in April this year the Lisbon Court ordered Uber Technologies Inc. to shut down its Portuguese website and pay a daily fine of €10,000 if it kept taking bookings and its drivers delivering customers to their destinations.
As Uber Technologies Inc.has no website or operation in Portugal is will be intrigued as to why it is being fined.
In a move to paralyse Uber's buisness, the court notified regulators, telecoms suppliers and banks to support measures designed to stop Uber dead in its tracks.
The Bank of Portugal was instructed by the court to freeze any transactions that it could link to Uber in a step that failed to take into account legitimate pending court processes and the fact that the injunction was against Uber Inc, not Uber Portugal.
The bank felt unable to comply with the court instruction due to the illegality of freezing payments of a company for which there was no legitimate injunction.
Bloomberg joined the anti-Uber brigade today, releasing old financial figures which showed the US company was heavily indebted to the tune of €420 million.
Uber is one of the most popular new technology companies in the world with hundreds of investors queuing to buy into the successful business model.
Uber is engaged in another round of financing with the Chinese group Hillhouse Capital which is preparing an offer of €894 million to join the investors.
The Bloomberg report today was based on "...very old figures that do not reflect our business activities today," said an Uber representative.
