Uber has regained its license to operate in London after winning a court appeal. Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick joins Kristin Myers to discuss.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Well, we want to talk Uber right now. Stock on that company up over 4% right now. The company won back their license to operate in London. So for more on this, we're joined now by Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick. Emily.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Hi, Kristin. We are watching shares of Uber up as much as 6.3% at session highs today after the company won back the ability to continue operating in London, its largest European market. Now, this coming after London Deputy Chief Magistrate Tan Ikram gave the company an 18 month license extension, deeming it now quote, "fit and proper to hold a permit" despite what he said were quote "historical failings" by the company. Now, this trial in itself was sparked in part after Uber in November last year was denied the renewal of this operating license in London by the city's transport authority on concerns that some drivers had been allowed to operate after being banned by uploading their photos to another person's account. Now, there are also concerns that some drivers didn't have proper insurance, so there were also concerns over passenger safety.

Now, with this new license that Uber has been granted, the company must follow 21 conditions. That's up from the 14 it had been required to follow as part of its previous permit in the city. Now, with these new conditions, these are mostly centered on driver photo ID and insurance fraud since those concerns did come up during the trial and in that earlier phase back in November last year. And now Uber is going to have to reapply in 18 [INAUDIBLE] once this permit is up. But again, taking a look at what Wall Street analysts are saying, they're now really posturing that this company is going to be able to continue operating in London for the foreseeable future, especially given the words of encouragement and mostly positive sentiment around Uber that the London judge had actually written in that decision.

Now, just taking a look at what this means for Uber as a whole, London is a huge market for this company. It's one of the reasons why this license extension was so consequential. Since launching in the city about eight years ago, Uber has grown its driver base there to about 45,000 in the city alone and said that the app is used regularly by about 3.5 million people in London. Now, this was coming, of course, after a protracted legal battle between Uber and UK regulators. This latest trial lasted about 10 months now.

While it is mostly a positive here for Uber, of course, seeing that stock on the rise today, not everyone has been so upbeat about this decision. I want to call out what the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, which represents some of London's Black Cab drivers, said in a statement on Twitter earlier today. They called it a quote "disaster for London. Uber has demonstrated time and time again that it simply can't be trusted to put the safety of Londoners, its drivers and other road users above profit." End quote.

Now, of course, on the other hand, taking a look at what the Street has been saying, we did have Cowen Analyst John Blackledge saying in a note this afternoon quote, "While this license is shorter than the five year operating license that the company had initially applied for back in 2017, we believe that the shorter license poses no long term issue and that the business should operate in London for the foreseeable future with no interruption." So again, Wall Street here and this really investors as a whole positive on this decision. We do see shares of Uber trading higher in intraday trading. Kristin.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick, thanks so much.