New York City has filed a lawsuit against delivery app Motoclick and its CEO, alleging illegal fees and other violations of the city’s delivery worker pay rules that the city says amount to millions of dollars in stolen wages and damages. City officials say they are seeking to shut the company down and are warning other delivery platforms ahead of new worker-protection laws taking effect January 26, 2026.
New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) filed a case in New York State Supreme Court on January 15 against Motoclick and its CEO, Juan Pablo Salinas Salek, alleging the company violated New York City’s “Delivery Worker Laws.”
In a press release announcing the filing, the mayor’s office said DCWP estimates Motoclick and Salinas Salek owe workers “millions” in stolen pay and damages and that the city is seeking to shut down the company entirely. The city alleges Motoclick charged workers a $10 fee for canceled orders and deducted the full cost of refunded orders from workers’ pay, sometimes claiming workers owed the company money.
The lawsuit follows complaints filed with the city by 20 delivery workers, according to reporting by The Nation.
One of those workers, Gustavo Ajche, told The Nation that a screenshot from the app showed he received $6.75 for three hours of work in November 2024, which The Nation said was far below the city’s minimum pay standard for delivery workers at the time. “They keep you waiting for hours, and sometimes you don’t make any money for the work you put in,” Ajche said.
Another delivery worker, Alejandro Grajales, told The Nation he believed Motoclick did not follow minimum pay and distance rules. “They don’t respect the minimum wage. They don’t respect the distance limits. They pay around four or five dollars for one delivery, and we have to go very far. There’s no option for the customer to give us tips, and they take 25 cents from each delivery,” he said.
A third worker, Antonio Solis, told The Nation he worked with Motoclick for about two weeks in May 2025 and estimated he lost roughly $100 to $200 in unpaid wages, including time spent waiting between deliveries.
The enforcement action comes early in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s term; he was sworn in on January 1, 2026, according to the city’s website.
In the city’s announcement of the lawsuit, DCWP Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine said the city was seeking to “shutdown” Motoclick and warned other apps to comply with worker protections. Levine also announced a compliance effort in which the agency sent notices to delivery companies including Instacart, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber, warning them to follow new delivery worker laws scheduled to take effect January 26.
Those laws include measures requiring delivery platforms to provide an opportunity to tip at or before checkout and to extend minimum pay protections to grocery delivery workers, according to DCWP’s summary of the new laws and rules.
Separately, DCWP said in a report released January 13 that Uber Eats and DoorDash made design changes in December 2023 that made tipping harder for customers by moving tip options to after checkout. DCWP said average tips on those two platforms were $0.76 per delivery compared with $2.17 on platforms that kept tipping at checkout, and estimated the change reduced workers’ tip earnings by $554 million.
DoorDash has disputed the city’s characterization. In a January 13 statement, the company said customers can still tip and argued the 2022 DCWP study discussed the possibility that consumers might tip less after higher pay standards. DoorDash also said delivery workers’ overall earnings increased after the city’s minimum pay rules took effect.
The Nation reported that Levine rejected DoorDash’s claim that the city recommended moving tipping to after delivery, calling the suggestion “absurd” and arguing the 2022 study described a risk the agency anticipated, not an endorsement.
The Nation also reported that Solis and Grajales are members of Los Deliveristas Unidos, a delivery-worker group founded in 2020 that has advocated for stronger protections for app-based couriers.
During the 2025 mayoral campaign, DoorDash donated $1 million to a super PAC supporting Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, according to NY1. Motoclick did not respond to a request for comment from The Nation.
