Bus firm takes car sharers to court

Serves the cleaning ladies right for talking and eating in a car share situation. The cleaning ladies should have been jailed! [:-P] Parasitical competition indeed! The cleaning ladies should be ashamed. Ashamed, I say.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1525590,00.html

Bus firm takes car sharers to court

Kim Willsher in Paris
Monday July 11, 2005
The Guardian

They might have been congratulated for their "green" efforts in an
area of heavy air pollution.
Instead a group of French cleaning ladies who organised a car-sharing
scheme to get to work are being taken to court by a coach company
which accuses them of "an act of unfair and parasitical competition".

The women, who live in Moselle and work five days a week at EU
offices in Luxembourg, are being taken to court by Transports
Schiocchet Excursions, which runs a service along the route. It wants
the women to be fined and their cars confiscated.

Two years ago a business tribunal threw out the company's case. It is
now pursuing the women in a higher court, claiming that their action
has cost it €2m (£1.4m).
The women explained that for many years cleaners used the TSE line
for the 40-minute ride across the border, which cost them €110 (£76)
a month.

"Using our cars is quicker and at least twice as cheap. And on the
bus we didn't have the right to eat or even to speak," said Martine
Bourguignon. Odette Friedmann added: "In the evening instead of
coming to get us at 9.30pm the bus would arrive at 10.30pm. If you
made any comment to the driver you'd get a mouthful of abuse."

"It's absurd and ridiculous," said the women's lawyer, Cécile Klein-
Schmitt. "I don't see how any magistrate can find any legal basis for
this case."

TSE is also suing the women's employer, Onet-Luxembourg. "They've
basically accused us of inciting the car-sharing scheme when we have
nothing to do with the method of transport used by our staff," said
director Frédéric Sirerol.

The court case will be heard in January next year.

dickboyd@aol.com

.... and in NoVa, one could say that car sharering (AKA slugging) takes revenue from local mass transit providers (Metro, VRE, and all the commuter bus companies that serve PW, Stafford, and Spotsy counties). [B)]

Dick don't send this to Metro, they may get "ideas"! [;)]

Keep on sluggin'! [:)]

Wow, can you say frivolous lawsuit? Why they are at it, why don't they sue all drivers that drive between those two points? Even if one of the carpoolers was making money off operating the route, this suit reeks or monopoly behaviour. This bus company needs to be sanctioned for their arrogance.

quote:

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Originally posted by SpotsySlugBug
[br]A few cleaning ladies considered competition? So stupid. Does anyone know what if any law was actually broken? There couldn't possibly be any law on their books for this....

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It sounds like they are trying to stretch some law against "unfair and parasitical competition". I'm sure the law was never intended for something like this. The law was probably meant to be used against companies that steal other company's customer lists and then try to gain their business. Or when an employee leaves a company and tries to open his/her own competing business and steals the former employers customers.