Ex-Uber staffer says in bombshell letter that the company had a unit dedicated to stealing trade secrets

Uber cofounder and former CEO Travis Kalanick.Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A trade-theft trial between Uber and Alphabet's autonomous vehicle unit, Waymo, has been delayed after a hearing in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Waymo requested the delay on Monday so that it could look into whether or not Uber had withheld evidence in the case.
Uber had a unit dedicated to stealing trade secrets, according to ex-staffer Richard Jacobs, who testified in court Tuesday.

A former Uber employee's description of spying on rivals and destroying evidence caused chaos in a San Francisco courtroom on Tuesday.

The trial between Uber and Waymo scheduled to begin next week has been delayed by order of the judge, who scolded Uber for withholding evidence, according to media reports.

The allegations of cloak-and-dagger tactics at Uber, the ride-hailing giant that has been accused of stealing trade secrets involving self-driving cars from Waymo, seemed straight out of a spy novel. And the events in court added more uncertainty into a high-profile lawsuit between two of the tech industry's most powerful players.

Judge William Alsup delayed the upcoming trial, originally scheduled for December 4, saying it would be a "huge injustice" to force Waymo to go to trial given the new evidence that surfaced in the case, according Reuters and other accounts from the hearing.

hello from 30,000 feet! here's a sentence from a judge you never want to hear in court:
“I can no longer trust the words of the lawyers for Uber in this case,” Judge Alsup said. “If even half of what is in that letter is true, it would be an injustice for Waymo to go to trial.”
— ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) November 28, 2017

Lawyers for Waymo read a letter apparently written by former Uber security staffer Richard Jacobs, which detailed an internal unit at the company focused on stealing trade secrets.

Jacobs also testified in person on Tuesday, where he said that the surveillance team at Uber used “anonymous servers” separate Uber's main servers, according to Bloomberg. He described it as a system that actively deletes messages after a small delay so as to leave no trace.

Ex-Uber employee Ric Jacobs details culture deeply rooted in secrecy, paranoia at Uber: disappearing messages, trainings to evade legal investigations, groups devoted to obtaining trade secrets
— Greg Bensinger (@GregBensinger) November 28, 2017

In Jacobs Letter, his attorney states that Marketplace Analytics team at Uber "“exists expressly for the purpose of acquiring trade secrets, codebase and competitive intelligence.” #UberWaymo
— Biz Carson (@bizcarson) November 28, 2017

Waymo's lawyer, reading from the Jacobs letter, says that Uber also identified employees at other companies who might be willing to leak confidential information to them.
— kate conger (@kateconger) November 28, 2017

Ex-Uber employee says Uber attorney trained employees on how to "impede, obstruct or influence" ongoing legal investigations, including use of ephemeral messages
— Greg Bensinger (@GregBensinger) November 28, 2017

Waymo had requested the delay on Monday so it could look into whether or not Uber had withheld evidence in the case.

But even after Judge Alsup delayed the start of the trial, Tuesday's hearing continued for more than two hours, with a seemingly unending series of eyebrow-raising claims and counterclaims.

The closely watched case pits two of the tech industry's most powerful companies against each other at a time when each is racing to develop self-driving cars that could upend the automobile and transportation industries.

Waymo, the autonomous-car subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, sued Uber in February, alleging that a former Waymo exec Anthony Levandowski shared confidential files with Uber. Levandowski left his role at Waymo in January 2016 to found another self-driving-car company, Otto, which was acquired by Uber in August 2016.

Most of the allegations in the case date to the period when Uber was led by CEO Travis Kalanick, the cofounder who was ousted earlier this year amid criticism that the company had fostered a toxic work culture and allowed sexual harassment to flourish.

In August, former Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi joined Uber as the new CEO, promising to shed the company's "growth at all costs" mentality.

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