MONTREAL — Montreal restaurant Déli Boyz has filed a class-action lawsuit against food-delivery companies over the commissions charged by these services during the pandemic, alleging they are “exorbitant and abusive.”
The case is targeting food-delivery companies that operate through smartphone apps and websites, including Uber Eats, DoorDash and SkipTheDishes. The class-action lawsuit points to the relationship between restaurants and these companies as “a contract of adhesion, where commission cannot be negotiated and is imposed on the restaurant.”
The case seeks damages, for all Quebec restaurants, equal to the amount of the commissions paid to the named delivery companies in excess of 15-per-cent of the total cost of the customer order going back two years. The application also seeks an injunction ordering third-party delivery services to stop charging commissions exceeding 15 per cent.
This law suit follows the implementing of a province-wide lockdown in Quebec, which includes a curfew that limited restaurants’ exclusively to delivery business during curfew hours (8 p.m. to 5 a.m.).
This lockdown, which took effect January 9, has resulted in renewed calls for the province to put in place caps on the fees charged by food-delivery platforms.
