SYDNEY, March 18 (Reuters) - Uber ( UBER ) has agreed to

pay A$271.8 million ($178 million) to settle a lawsuit brought

by Australian taxi operators and drivers, who say they lost

income when the ride-hailing company moved into the country, a

law firm said on Monday.

The settlement is Australia's fifth-largest, Maurice

Blackburn Lawyers said in a statement.

The class action suit was filed in 2019 in the Supreme Court

of Victoria state on behalf more than 8,000 taxi and hire car

owners and drivers, accusing Uber ( UBER ) of breaking laws requiring

taxis and hire cars to be licenced.

Uber's ( UBER ) 2012 arrival in the market took revenue from licenced

taxi drivers while destroying the value of the licences they had

paid for, according to the lawsuit.

Uber ( UBER ) had said it never knowingly broke the law.

"Uber ( UBER ) fought tooth and nail at every point along the way,"

Maurice Blackburn Principal Michael Donelly said in a statement.

"After years of refusing to do the right thing by those we

say they harmed, Uber ( UBER ) has blinked," he said.

An Uber ( UBER ) spokesperson said in an email that the company had

contributed to state-level taxi compensation schemes since 2018

"and with today's proposed settlement, we put these legacy

issues firmly in our past".

Uber ( UBER ) did not disclose the proposed settlement in its

response.

Former lawmaker and taxi driver Rod Barton, a member of the

class action, said the settlement vindicated his belief that

Uber ( UBER ) had knowingly avoided the country's taxi licencing rules.

"They knew full well they were required to have their

drivers and their vehicles fully licenced," Barton told the

Australian Broadcasting Corp.

"They chose not to do that, and they did a lot of things

that gave them a commercial advantage against the taxi industry,

which established their foothold," he added.

The law was changed in 2015 which allowed Uber ( UBER ) to operate

without taxi licences while state governments set up

compensation schemes for taxi drivers and licence owners.

($1 = 1.5246 Australian dollars)