Uber lawyer says board, ex-CEO knew of evidence withheld from Waymo case

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Uber Technologies Inc’s former chief executive and some board members knew of a letter alleging employees had stolen trade secrets, but the document was withheld from a high-stakes lawsuit, a company attorney testified on Wednesday.

The admission that the letter was not produced in the lawsuit drew a sharp retort from U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing the case and has asked U.S. prosecutors to investigate it, raising the possibility of criminal charges.

“On the surface it looks like you covered this up,” Alsup told Uber in court, later adding he had never seen a case like this. “It seems like there are so many bad things that Uber has done in this case. Usually it’s more divided.”

Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Waymo has accused the ride services company of stealing confidential information about its self-driving car designs, the highest-stakes challenge on a list of litigation and investigations inherited by Dara Khosrowshahi when he joined Uber as CEO in August.

The case has hobbled Uber’s self-driving car program and Alphabet is seeking hefty claims. Uber has denied that it used Waymo trade secrets in its autonomous vehicle program.

The company recently signed off on a multibillion-dollar investment from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) that, if successful, would demonstrate confidence in Uber’s long-term prospects.

SoftBank launched a tender for Uber shares this week and the Japanese company has said some notable early investors planned to sell.

Uber’s use of encrypted messaging may set legal precedents

Padilla said the company had weighed the distraction of a drawn-out battle with Jacobs, as well as security concerns for employees named in the letter. An Uber manager, Mat Henley, who also testified on Wednesday said that he had fired Jacobs for poor performance.

Much of the testimony surrounded Uber employees’ use of communications applications that did not store messages, including Wickr and Telegram.

Uber CEO Khosrowshahi weighed in by tweeting on Wednesday that he had changed the communications policy in September to forbid use of such applications to discuss Uber.

Henley said that the group that Jacobs alleged stole trade secrets is now focused on counterintelligence to protect Uber from rivals.