Shortly after Travis Kalanick relinquished his position as chief executive of Uber, arch rival Alphabet asked a judge to find the ride-hailing service in contempt for failing to reveal that Kalanick knew of stolen information from Google.
In the ongoing court case between Uber and Alphabet, former Uber autonomous car executive Anthony Levandowski stole about 14,000 confidential documents from Alphabet when he left the technology company.
According to Google’s lawyers, Levandowski told Kalanick and two other Uber employees in March 2016 that he had five discs containing documents from Alphabet. Despite this, Uber acquired his truck startup, Otto, for $680 million just a few months later.
A June 5 filing from Uber confirmed that Kalanick knew of the stolen documents, but asked Levandowski to destroy them, Recode reports.
“On or about March 11, 2016, Mr. Levandowski reported to Mr. Kalanick, Nina Qi and Cameron Poetzscher at Uber as well as Lior Ron that he had identified five discs in his possession containing Google information. Mr. Kalanick conveyed to Mr. Levandowski in response that Mr. Levandowski should not bring any Google information into Uber and that Uber did not want any Google information. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Levandowski communicated to Uber that he had destroyed the discs,” the filing said.
Uber made the decision to fire Levandowski on May 30 for failing to comply with court orders and pleading his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.
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