Taxi Drivers Sue NYC For $2.56B Over Medallions

NEW YORK CITY — A pair of taxi drivers filed a $2.56 billion lawsuit against New York City accusing officials of profiting off inflated medallion prices.

The federal class action lawsuit is the latest in a long-running fight over medallions, which have kept many cabbies deep in debt.

It names the Taxi and Limousine Commission, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, among other others, as defendants and accused city officials of fraudulently raking in millions off the backs of taxi drivers.

"From 2004 to 2017, TLC and the City willfully, knowingly and intentionally overstated the value of taxi medallions and fraudulently concealed the fact that the value of these medallions had
already begun to decline as early as 2010, as confirmed by an internal TLC report," the lawsuit states. "Worst of all, the motivation behind the fraudulent acts of the TLC and the City was, without question, 'greed.'"

New York City pulled in $855 million from medallion sales from what the taxi medallion owners — Alec Soybel and Galina Kaminker — claim was a fraudulent scheme.

Soybel and Kaminker sunk $690,000 and $280,000 in medallions giving them their taxis the right to take hails, according to the lawsuit.

But city officials had set artificially inflated minimum or "upset" prices on medallions, among other problems that left Soybel, Kaminker and taxi drivers saddled with debt, the lawsuit claims.

And TLC officials eventually went into talks with Uber and Lyft that would allow the rideshares to operate without medallions, thus causing the value of medallions to crater, the lawsuit claims.

Soybel, Kaminker and other medallion owners are represented by Jon Norinsberg of Norinsberg Law and Joshua Fitch of Cohen & Fitch LLP.

“For over a decade, TLC willfully and deliberately engaged in a fraudulent scheme to artificially inflate medallion values," Norinsberg said in a statement. "Driven by greed, TLC artificially pumped up medallion prices, published false and misleading reports and hid the truth about the impending collapse of the medallion market."