Uber Does Not Hand Hold Levandowski For $180 Million To Google

Uber Technologies Inc. has emphasized that their decision to let Anthony Levandowski shoulder the $180 million legal award Google had won against them, all by him is correct since the guilty plea by their former star engineer proves that he is a liar. Levandowski was hired by the ride-hailing firm in the year 2016, while he was working with Alphabet Inc., which is a self-driving car programme. He was fired after their companies were entangled in the trade secret disputes, one of the Silicon Valley’s biggest high profile case.

Levandowski had agreed to plead guilty for the trade secret theft after his woes deepened when the Google won a contract breach arbitration case driving him to bankruptcy, while he was still counting on his former employer, Ubers’ promise to provide a legal cover to him called indemnification. Uber has denied any obligation for paying $180 million as reimbursement to Levandowski.

The company in a filing with the court have said, “Levandowski, secretly committed a crime by stealing trade secrets with the intent to use them and if Uber had known this, it never would’ve entered into any agreements with Levandowski.” Neel Chatterjee, Levandowski’s lawyer has stated, “Uber can’t renege on the indemnification agreement because it vetted the engineer before hiring him and knew there was reason to be concerned he had taken proprietary information from Google. Uber is just trying to wiggle out of its agreement to protect Levandowski, because it did not like the outcome, of his legal fight with Google.” He added, “Uber’s assertion that Anthony did not disclose material information to Uber is false.” 

Uber’s filings actually fill the gap in a dispute which was mainly executed behind closed doors of private arbitration. Uber claims that Levandowski had forfeited his right to indemnification when he had asserted his constitutional right against self-incrimination, thereby refusing to testify in Google’s legal action against him.

However, in months to come, Levandowski might reiterate pointing the company’s eagerness to recruit him which included buying engineer’s driverless startup for $680 million, and also looking the other way when their vetting reports alerted them about the information taken from Google by him. 

The due-diligence report pointed out that after months of Levandowski leaving his earlier job, he possessed and destroyed “highly confidential Google proprietary information,” including source code, design files, engineering documents and software related to self-driving cars.