Hopefully Uber lives by the mantra that “any publicity is good publicity” because they sure get a lot of it- good or bad. This week they’re in the news because they’ve agreed to pay fines to one state for unpaid workers’ compensation insurance after leaving the state due to allegations that they misclassified their drivers.

Uber services started in Alaska in October of 2014 but left the state in March 2015 after they could not come to an agreement with the city of Anchorage. The city requires taxi drivers to get background checks and have camera in their cars, as well as purchase a certain threshold of car insurance. Uber did not comply with those demands. Cab companies complained they had an unfair advantage because they did not have to comply with those taxi ordinances and did not have to pay for a taxi license which can cost thousands of dollars. A judge told Uber they could either give free rides or leave the city, so they continued to pay their drivers but customers got free rides. For a little while. That business model seemingly did not turn out so well for Uber and they left the next spring.

During those few months it was operational Uber was acting as if the drivers were contracted workers and the company did not pay workers’ compensation insurance. Since Uber left the state before they could be found to be doing anything illegal (illegal in the eyes of Alaska), they technically were not doing anything wrong but they have agreed that they will not return to the state until they get workers’ compensation insurance for drivers. They have agreed to pay the state workers’ compensation fees for the time they were operational, roughly $77,925.