After a two-year probe, COMESA’s Competition Commission has forced Uber to rewrite parts of its rider contract.
The Commission says the parts of the contracts mislead and unfairly tilt risk to customers.
At the heart of the case was a basic question: should a global platform be free to set terms that weaken local consumer protections?
The Commission decided the answer was no.
It closed the investigation after Uber agreed to amend its Terms & Conditions.
The changes now bar the company from routing disputes in Kenya and Uganda through Dutch law, clarify when prices can change mid-journey, and limit Uber’s ability to absolve itself of liability.
Launched on September 5, 2023, the case closed on September 18, 2025.
It marked the first time a regional African body has compelled a global tech firm to align its small print with local fairness standards.
What triggered the probe
The case began with consumer complaints in Uganda, Kenya and Egypt.
Riders reported being charged more than the fare shown at booking, drivers cancelling after long waits, and being billed for rides that never materialized.
When the Commission examined Uber’s Terms & Conditions, it found four red flags.
“We can change the price.” Uber’s contract allowed it to “establish, remove and or revise” charges “at any time.”
This left riders exposed to fare increases beyond their control — such as sudden traffic closures or police roadblocks.
“We can end the ride.” The terms gave Uber the right to terminate a trip “at any time, for any reason and without notice,” even midway the journey.
“It’s not on us.” Liability disclaimers sought to absolve Uber of responsibility for drivers’ actions, even though riders contract with — and pay — Uber directly.
Dutch law, African trips.
In Uganda and Kenya, Uber required disputes to be settled under Dutch law, making local consumer redress difficult or impossible.
For the Commission, these clauses raised possible breaches of Article 27 (false or misleading representation) and Article 28 (unconscionable conduct) of the COMESA Competition Regulations.
The Commission concluded the terms were both “misleading” and “unconscionable”.
What Uber changed
Following months of back-and-forth with the Commission, Uber agreed to localize its contracts and amend the most contested clauses.
The key shifts were governing law. Riders in Uganda and Kenya will now resolve disputes under local law rather than being pushed into Dutch courts.
Price certainty. Up-front fare estimates remain, but Uber can no longer rely on vague wording that allowed it to “revise at any time.”
Any changes must be communicated, and riders cannot be saddled with extra costs from unforeseeable events outside their control.
Liability disclaimers. The contract no longer gives Uber a free pass for everything that happens on a trip.
While some exclusions remain, the sweeping “we’re not liable for drivers” language has been scaled back.
Service termination. The right to end a ride is now tied to safety risks or impossibility, not a blanket right to terminate mid-journey.
The Commission, thus, closed the investigation on condition that Uber publish the updated terms and formally notify riders.
Why this matters (beyond Uber)
Local redress beats foreign fine print. By forcing Uber’s rider disputes to be resolved under local laws, the Commission signaled that global platforms can’t simply copy and paste contracts designed for Europe or the US into African markets.
Clauses that strip consumers of accessible remedies are losing ground — and other platforms with foreign-anchored terms will likely need to adjust too.
Price transparency is now a competition issue: Fare certainty is not just a consumer-rights concern; it’s central to trust in app-based transport.
If the price shown at booking can change mid-journey for reasons outside the rider’s control, confidence falls and competition weakens.
By grounding its case in Articles 27–28, the Commission has created a regional precedent that can be extended to food delivery, e-commerce, and other gig-economy platforms.
Platforms can’t outsource all risk to “third parties”: Uber’s broad liability disclaimers clashed with how the service actually works.
Riders book through Uber, pay Uber, and receive receipts from Uber.
Narrowing those carve-outs brings the contract closer to lived reality.
That shift could ripple across the sector, strengthening expectations around safety, refunds, and complaints handling.
The broader compliance weather: data protection squalls
Uber’s clash with the Commission is not an isolated skirmish — it’s part of a wider storm confronting global tech firms.
In August 2024, the Dutch Data Protection Authority fined Uber €290 million for shifting European drivers’ data to US servers without adequate safeguards.
It was one of the heaviest penalties to date (now under appeal).
And Uber is hardly alone. Amazon has been forced by EU regulators to change how it ranks products after using marketplace data to favor its own brands.
TikTok has been fined in UK and EU for mishandling children’s data.
While Meta was told it could no longer rely on broad contract clauses to justify targeted adverts.
In each case, what began as consumer or competition scrutiny quickly bled into data protection, showing how the regulatory lines are blurring.
Tribunal Backs URA in UGX 10.2 Billion Century Bottling Tax FightThat same convergence is starting to echo in Africa. In Uganda, the Personal Data Protection Office is still building capacity under the 2019 Data Protection and Privacy Act.
However, it has already fined fintechs and telecommunication operators for mishandling consumer data.
The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has also pressed platforms on pricing transparency for mobile money and internet services.
While the Competition law, whose regulations were passed mid this month, could one day bring a stronger national backbone to cases like Uber’s.
The lesson is that consumer protection, competition, and data governance are no longer separate battles.
A clause that shifts liability abroad or hides fare risks can be seen in the same light as a data transfer that bypasses local safeguards.
COMESA’s Uber decision shows the region is no longer content to let global boilerplate set the rules.
For Uganda, it’s an early signal that the future of digital markets will be shaped as much in Kampala and Lilongwe as in Brussels or Amsterdam.
Driver accounts in Kampala and Nairobi mirror the Commission’s theory of harm.
The legal spine of the Commission’s case
At the heart of the probe were two pillars of the COMESA Competition Regulations:
Article 27 – False or Misleading Representation. This clause bans presenting prices or remedies in ways that don’t match reality.
Uber’s fare estimates, which its contract said could be revised “at any time,” risked misleading riders into relying on a price that was never truly fixed.
Article 28 – Unconscionable Conduct. This provision prohibits conduct that, “in all the circumstances,” is grossly unfair.
That includes terminating a ride mid-journey for reasons unrelated to the rider, or shifting every risk – from traffic delays to safety liabilities – onto the consumer while also limiting their access to local redress.
Together, these two articles formed the backbone of the Commission’s case.
They reframed Uber’s small print not as customer-service hiccups, but as structural violations of regional consumer law.
What’s striking is how closely this reasoning mirrors global practice.
The EU’s Unfair Contract Terms Directive and the UK Consumer Rights Act similarly target clauses that mislead consumers.
By invoking Articles 27 and 28, the Commission is effectively aligning African consumer protection with the same fairness tests applied in Brussels and London.
This sends a signal that platforms can no longer treat African markets as regulatory outliers.
By contrast, in the US, where consumer contract law is lighter and unconscionability is harder to prove, many of these clauses would likely survive scrutiny.
That makes COMESA’s decision stand out. African regulators are not just catching up; they are in some respects pushing ahead of the US in setting fairness standards for digital platforms.
What to watch next
The Commission has made clear this decision isn’t a one-off.
It will conduct periodic reviews to ensure Uber sticks to its commitments, and consumers have been urged to report if the company backslides.
The ruling sets a precedent that goes beyond ride-hailing.
Food-delivery and e-commerce platforms with similar small-print tricks — from liability carve-outs to foreign governing-law clauses — should expect scrutiny.
Some may choose to quietly update their terms before regulators come knocking.
Kenya’s Competition Authority and Uganda’s still-emerging consumer watchdogs.
They are likely to align with the Commission’s stance, even if national statutes differ.
Any platform operating regionally with T&Cs that sidestep local remedies should now consider those clauses a red flag.
Africa is ending “one-size-fits-all” ToS
For years, big techs operated on a simple formula.
Write a single set of terms in Silicon Valley or Amsterdam, export them wholesale to dozens of markets.
In Africa, that bet largely held. Until now.
The COMESA Competition Commission has effectively torn up that playbook.
Its message is disarmingly simple: ‘if the app is here, the law is here.’
The Uber case doesn’t outlaw surge pricing, independent contractors, or the very model of ride-hailing.
Instead, it goes after something more fundamental and durable — the promise at the heart of digital commerce.
‘A displayed price must mean what it says. A contract cannot erase liability with a sentence.
A local rider’s rights cannot be outsourced to a distant court in The Hague.’
In doing so, the Commission has anchored Africa’s platform economy to local fairness norms.
That anchor may look modest, a tweak to Uber’s terms in Kenya, Uganda, and Egypt, but it is also a signal flare.
It tells every global platform that operates in Africa that the age of copy-paste contracts is ending.
What matters now is whether the terms of service hold not in theory, but in practice, all the way to the last kilometre.
