Uber Files: Lobbying regulator says it has no power to investigate or prosecute pre-2017 events

The so-called Uber Files showed the deep lobbying by the US cab-hailing company of Irish government ministers and officials in the 2014-2017 period, most notably by former Department of Finance secretary general John Moran, at a time when the group was trying to break into the Irish market.

The revelations contained in more than 100,000 files leaked by whistleblower Mark MacGann, an Irish man who was Uber’s chief lobbyist in Europe, showed the company’s aggressive approach in pressing its case to get strict taxi regulations relaxed, which ultimately came up short.

Official lobbying returns show gaps between what lobbying was declared by Uber and Moran’s firm RHH International, and the activity revealed in MacGann’s leaked files covering the critical period of the most frenetic lobbying in late 2015 and early 2016. The register shows RHH did not declare contacts with former ministers Michael Noonan and Frances Fitzgerald and senior civil servant Graham Doyle, about Uber business, while Uber did not disclose its own direct contacts with then taoiseach Enda Kenny at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2016.

Uber said it was never its intention to lobby officials covertly, while Moran said the lobbying returns fully disclosed his role in acting for Uber and that he was “wholly transparent” under categories that included exemptions from disclosure under the lobbying act. However, he added that if the regulator believed he made any errors, he would be “more than happy to correct them”.

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The Irish Times asked the lobbying regulator, the Standards in Public Office Commission, whether it intended to review the lobbying returns in light of the disclosures in the Uber Files, or whether it had made contact with Uber, RHH or Moran over the recent revelations.

The commission responded that it doesn’t comment on individual cases of compliance, though it noted that its enforcement powers only came into effect for contraventions that occurred on or after January 1st, 2017. In other words, if there were issues arising from the lobbying returns filed by Uber or RHH, then there could be nothing in them that could amount to an offence that could be investigated or prosecuted as they occurred before that date. There have been no prosecutions so far over any lobbying activities that were not registered.