Abstract: The purpose of this work is to offer a general overview of the issues and challenges presented by the rapid development of collaborative and sharing platforms in the context of the European Single Market, by focusing, specifically, on the issues that have emerged from the lengthy legal battle that has characterized the activity of Uber, since the debut of its first European services in 2011. The conclusions of the work take shape in the aftermath of the highly anticipated decision of the European Court of Justice (C-434/15 Asociación Profesional Elite Taxi) to categorize one of Uber’s services as a ‘service in the field of transport’, thus denying to the Californian company the ample protections, and significant freedoms, granted by the European framework to established service providers and ‘information society services’, and subordinating the operational reality of the service to the fragmented cosmos of national transport regulations. The influence in national law of the decision of the European court, within the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 49/2019 will also be the subject of our analysis.

Keywords: Uber; collaborative and sharing platforms; privatisation of profits; socialisation of risks; Government Emergency Ordinance no. 49/2019