Lime crashes in court bid to disrupt scooter scene

Bloomberg

Lime, the electric scooter company valued at a $1 billion, lost its bid for a court order temporarily halting San Francisco’s plan to let two smaller companies operate after the city
denied Lime a permit.
But to Lime, a court decision not to block the city from launching its pilot program wasn’t all bad. The judge wants to “get to the bottom of what happened” in the permit process and is letting Lime question officials at San Francisco’s transportation agency, according to the company.
Lime accused the city in a lawsuit of denying the startup permission to operate as punishment for deploying its scooters on city sidewalks earlier in the year without approval from regulators.
John Cote, a spokesman for San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, said the permit process for the pilot program is “both fair and transparent” and that “the reality is that Lime’s application fell notably short of its competitors.” Calling the court hearing “a victory for the people of San Francisco and Lime,” the company said it won the judge’s permission to take depositions in the coming week of five officials at San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority.