City’s transport regulator last week declared it would not renew Uber’s licence to operate Uber rival Lyft met London officials, documents show

Frankfurt/London, Sept.26: Lyft, Uber’s closest U.S. rival in the taxihailing business, met repeatedly with officials from London’s transport regulator over the past year, a sign it may be targeting the city for international expansion.

Transport for London (TfL), which oversees taxi and private hire car operators, published details of the meetings with Lyft executives in response to a UK government freedom of information request in July.

If Lyft enters the London market Uber would face its

first well-funded competitor in Europe when it is trying to overturn a decision by TfL not to renew its licence. Lyft has raised around $2.6 billion in financing, including an investment round of $600 million in April, according to funding tracker Crunchbase.

Lyft’s investors include automaker Motors.

London’s transport regulator on Friday said it would not renew Uber’s licence to operate, citing General the firm’s approach to reporting serious criminal offences and background checks on drivers.

A Lyft spokeswoman declined to comment on the timing of any expansion moves or the nature of Lyft meetings with London officials. It now operates ride services in more than 600 cities, covering as much as 95 percent of the U.S. population. Four TfL officials met with Lyft’s Chief Strategy Officer Raj Kapoor and Michael Masserman, its director of international government relations, in December 2016. Three unnamed members of the Greater London Authority were also present, according to TfL documents. Lyft presented details of its business model in that meeting. Subsequent follow-upconversations took place between TfL’s Director of Transport Innovation Michael Hurwitz and Lyft executives Kapoor and Masserman over the phone in December and in January, TfL documents showed.

This was followed by another meeting between the three in New York in March.