Uber starts service in St. Louis, files lawsuit

[...] the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission’s 7-1 vote allowing Uber, the company had claimed that St. Louis was the nation’s biggest metropolitan area without the service.

Uber’s antitrust lawsuit, filed in federal court, calls the commission a “cartel,” blames the commission for stifling Uber’s entry into the St. Louis market and seeks a temporary restraining order that allows the service to operate without any commission intrusion for two weeks.

“The MTC’s pretext for these barriers to entry was ‘public safety,’ but the true purpose of the MTC’s conduct was to bar entry by Uber” and other competitors to traditional taxis.

Uber also accused the “taxi-dominated commission” of acting “to protect its financial interest at the expense of the public” through anticompetitive conduct.