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STORY: Michael Donelly, a Principal at the Maurice Blackburn law firm, said that if approved by the court, the settlement would be Australia's fifth-largest ever.

The class action suit was filed in 2019 in the Supreme Court of Victoria state on behalf of more than 8,000 taxi and hire car owners and drivers, accusing Uber of breaking laws requiring taxis and hire cars to be licensed.

Lead plaintiff Nick Andrianakis hailed the settlement as a win for taxi operators and drivers, and hire car operators. "We suggested that Uber acted illegally and they needed to pay, and that they have today."

Uber's 2012 arrival in the market took revenue from licensed taxi drivers while destroying the value of the licenses they had paid for, according to the lawsuit. The ride-hailing company had said it never knowingly broke the law.

An Uber spokesperson said in an email that the company had contributed to state-level taxi compensation schemes since 2018 "and with today's proposed settlement, we put these legacy issues firmly in our past."