The Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) has ordered the operator of the ride-hailing service Grab to immediately release the remaining P19.3-million refund to eligible users after finding a low disbursement of the refunds from previous fines.
In a statement, PCC said it has reviewed the compliance reports of Grab Holdings Inc. and MyTaxi.PH Inc. on previous penalties and found that only 24.1 percent of the total refund has been claimed from Grab by eligible passengers as of June 15, 2021, or P6.15 million out of the total P25.45 million penalty required by the PCC to be returned to Grab users.
The ride-hailing app required additional steps for passengers to claim the refund, contributing to the low uptake. The PCC is giving Grab until April 22 to refund the remaining amounts to eligible users, noting that the refund should be immediately credited via GrabPay Wallet without requiring any act from the users to claim the amount.
But Grab Philippines said it is yet to receive the final decision of the PCC on the recommendations it offered on how to disburse the refund to eligible passengers lacking the mandatory KYC (know your customer), which caused the delay.
Grab Philippines said as soon as it received the refund order, it has outlined to the PCC its suggested measures to address the situation and has been eagerly awaiting the PCC’s response.
In a statement, the company assured it will continue to work with the PCC to ensure the remaining administrative fee amount is fully-redeemed.
Grab said has complied with the disbursement order of the PCC and those who have completed the basic KYC process can directly redeem the amount which was credited on their GrabPay Wallet accounts.
PCC penalized Grab a total of P63.7 million since 2018 for violations of its price and service quality commitments.
The PCC has since ordered Grab to issue refunds in the amounts of P5.05 million in November 2019, P14.15 million in December 2019, and P6.25 million in October 2020.
During the monitoring period of the takeover by Grab of Uber in 2018, PCC found t the ride-hailing company committed extraordinary pricing deviations, which resulted in the three sets of penalties. – Irma Isip
