Who said it's illegal ? You are allowed to sell your business to someone else
Of course you are.
And if Taxify were Trading under one of the three Trading Names as listed on the City Drive Services Operators Licence or indeed if they used City Drive Services then they would be operating legally.
At the moment they are deceiving innocent PH Drivers into working for them under false pretences.
As they are taking money from these drivers in the form of Commission then i think the Police should investigate for a possible case of Percunary Advantage by Deception.
Which is an easier sell to the CPS than Fraud
IMHO the reason there has been a huge influx, of largely immigrant, PH drivers into the London PH Trade in the last couple of years is because somebody thinks they are more easily exploited.
On a year by year basis taking an average there was about 17k PH Driver per year getting a Lic between around 05 and 12.
From 12 to 17 it's gone up to just under 22k a year.
So in average terms it hasn't gone up that much, but if you look closer I think you will find the number entering PH in London were dropping and it took Uber and TFL to change that trend.
They have basically created a workforce to be exploited.
As long as there are the naive, gullible and the stupid there will always be exploitation.