Cloak and dagger tales rivet Uber trial courtroom
Former security manager describes use of disappearing messages and untraceable phones
By Chloe Cornish and Leslie Hook in San Francisco
Encrypted texts, untraceable phones, late night secret meetings and self-deleting messages: ordinarily these are the stuff of spy novels.
But a former Uber employee this week electrified a San Francisco courtroom with allegations that a unit in the ride-hailing app routinely employed such tactics and sought to steal information from its competitors.
The testimony from Richard Jacobs, a former Uber manager for global security, has upended the company’s efforts to fend off a $1.8bn lawsuit claiming that it stole trade secrets from Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car unit.
US District Judge William Alsup, who is presiding over the case, was so enraged by the way Mr Jacob’s information came to light that he has delayed the trial, which was due to start next week, and accused Uber of “withholding” evidence in what looked like a “cover-up”.
The allegations also come at a critical time for Uber and its new chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi, who is seeking to distance the company from the aggressive course it charted under co-founder Travis Kalanick.
