The giant of shared trips Uber filed a lawsuit on Friday against Dordash, accusing the attire to deliver the suffocating competition by intimidating restaurants owners in exclusive agreements.
Uber alleges in the lawsuit, presented at the Superior Court of California, that its main rival intimidated restaurants to only work with Dordash. Uber states that Dordash, which has most of the food delivery market in the United States, threatens restaurants with multimillionaire sanctions or the elimination or degradation of the position of companies in the Dortash application.
Specifically, Uber states that Dordash presses restaurants to attack exclusive or almost exclusive agreements for first -part delivery services, which means that Dordash insists on the management only of orders made through the websites of the restaurants, says Uber.
“The case of Uber has no merit,” said a Dortash spokesman in an email to britcommerce on Friday. “His statements are unfounded and are based on their inability to offer merchants, consumers or mails a quality alternative.”
Dordash and Uber EATs are better known for their respective applications to connect restaurants, consumers and concert economy workers. Consumers use applications to find and ask for food such as pizza, egg rolls or restaurant pad. A concert economy worker then collects and delivers food to the consumer.
But the two companies also compete with their own white label delivery services, called Uber Direct and Dordash Drive on request, which were launched in 2020. These services are cheaper for restaurants, allowing customers to order directly from the own applications and the applications of restaurants and websites, while Uber and Dordash manage the emails behind the scene.
Uber says that Dordash manages first -part deliveries for more than 90% of the largest business restaurants in the United States, and alleges that Dordash used anti -competitive practices to win the market.
“More than 1 million merchants are associated with Uber Eats because we have helped them to reach more customers and provide them with the freedom to decide how they want to grow their businesses with delivery,” Sarsfarz Maredia, head of the Americas for delivery in delivery in Uber, he said in a statement sent by email. “We have heard more and more complaints from restaurants than Dordash’s tactics are limiting that freedom and punishing them for looking for better options. We hope that this presentation will end these unfair practices so that restaurants can choose the best for them without fear of penalty or remuneration. “
In an example of the demand, Uber says that an unidentified “important restaurant company told the company that it would not advance with a planned Uber Direct deployment in several of its restaurant brands. The reason, says Uber, is because Dordash allegedly threatened to increase the rates charged to the restaurant company to use the delivery services of third parties of Dordash if he continued using Uber Direct.
Uber says that this was not a unique event, but that multiple clients have told the company that they feel “as if they had a” gun in the head “, that Dordash is a” monopolist “and that they are being intimidated by Dordash.”
Uber has requested a jury trial; The company did not specify the amount of damage on the complaint. However, Uber states that these anti -competitive practices have cost the company “millions of dollars in income” and also restricted the growth of Uber Direct.