INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Uber argued in a recent court filing that former employee Anthony Levandowski committed fraud, an action that frees the company from any
obligation to pay his legal bills, including a judgment ordering the star engineer to pay Google $179 million.
The court filing was first
reported by Bloomberg.
Uber fraud claim was part of its response to Levandowski motion to compel the ride-hailing company into arbitration
in the hopes that his former employee will have to shoulder the cost of the $179 million judgment against him
The motion to compel arbitration, and now Uber response, is part of Levandowski bankruptcy proceedings
It the latest chapter in a legal saga that has entangled Uber and Waymo, the formerGoogle self-driving project that is now a business under
Alphabet.
In this latest court filing, Uber has agreed to arbitration
However, Uber also pushed back against Levandowski primary aim to force the company to stand by an indemnity agreement
Uber signed an indemnity agreement in 2016 when it acquired Levandowski self-driving truck startup Otto
Under the agreement, Uber said it would indemnify — or compensate — Levandowski against claims brought by his former employer,
Google.
Uber said it rescinded the indemnification agreement several months prior to the inception of Levandowski bankruptcy case &because
it was procured by his fraud,& according to the court filing
Uber revoked the indemnification agreement after Levandowski was indicted by a federal grand jury with 33 counts of theft and attempted
theft of trade secrets while working at Google, where he was an engineer and one of the founding members of the group that worked on Google
self-driving car project.
Uber notified Levandowski counsel on August 30, three days after the indictment, explaining that the
indemnification agreement was rescinded &because it had been procured by Levandowski fraud, including his fraudulent concealment of the
facts alleged in the indictment.&
Levandowski reached a plea deal in March 2020 with the U.S
District Attorney: one count of stealing trade secrets while working at Google.
Uber said it never received any benefits from Levandowski
under the indemnification agreement, and had nothing to return to him as a result of the rescission, the company said in the court
filing.
Levandowski attorney pushed back at Uber argument.
&Uber assertion that Anthony did not disclose material information to Uber is
false,& Levandowski attorney Neel Chatterjee said in an emailed statement sent to TechCrunch
&The accusations Uber makes is premised on information they obtained as part of the due diligence process
This is the latest in a string of meritless theories Uber has set forth to try to get out of the deal it struck because it did not like the
