5 Accusations From the Jacobs Letter That Could Rock Uber’s Legal Department

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Shutterstock/CreativeCaliph[/caption] Late Friday afternoon, the latest bombshell dropped in the ongoing Uber v. Waymo trade secrets saga with the unsealing of a new document--a 37-page letter full of damning accusations against the company.The letter was written by ex-Uber security analyst Richard Jacobs’ lawyer, Clayton Halunen, and it alleges Uber knowingly stole Waymo trade secrets, among other claims. Though Jacobs distanced himself from a few of the numerous allegations during a recent hearing, the letter has become a key document in the lawsuit. Jacobs’ lawyer sent the letter in May 2017 to Uber’s Deputy GC Angela Padilla, who came under fire in a special master’s report released earlier Friday for her failure to hand the letter over to lawyers on the Waymo case. Uber did not immediately respond to request for comment about the Jacobs letter, but its clear the document will be raising a ton of questions and issues for the ride-hailing company’s in-house legal team and new leader, Tony West. Here are five accusations in the letter most likely to create major headaches for Uber’s lawyers: 1. Stolen Trade Secrets- While Jacobs’ letter doesn’t prove Uber stole trade secrets from Alphabet Inc. autonomous vehicle unit, Waymo, it’s not boosting Uber’s case. The letter alleges that Uber knowingly stole Waymo trade secrets, an allegation Jacobs later denied during an appearance at a pretrial hearing, saying he didn’t know whether or not the allegation was true and that he hadn’t seen that specific line when he approved his lawyer’s letter. But he didn’t retreat from the letter’s other allegations against Uber. The letter says Uber employees actively worked to steal competitor trade secrets through the impersonation of drivers and passengers on others’ platforms, remotely accessed other companies’ confidential corporate communications and data, stole supply data to identify possible drivers and acquired code base to better understand how an unnamed rival’s app functioned. If the allegations are true, Uber could see legal action from impacted competitors other than Waymo. 2. Ephemeral Messaging-In earlier stages of Uber v. Waymo, Uber’s legal team told the court that the company’s servers held no trace of the company stealing trade secrets from Waymo. Jacobs’ letter added a whole new dimension to that argument. In the letter, his lawyer alleges that the company purposefully used apps such as Wickr to send messages that would disappear after a set amount of time, ranging from six seconds to six days. The letter also states that Uber used non-attributable devices purchased from outside vendors and not traceable to the company so that illegal activity could go undetected, outside of Uber’s servers.3. Attorney-Client Privilege As Cover-up- In-house lawyers probably shouldn’t be training employees on how to use attorney-client privilege to prevent communications from being used in litigation. But that’s exactly what the letter alleges Craig Clark, who was once Uber’s legal director for ThreatOps, did (before he left the company in the wake of its recent hacking scandal). The Jacobs letter notes that Clark told employees to address “all emails on sensitive intelligence collection to him” and instructed them to “specifically ask a question or request legal advice on some issue--even if no legal advice was needed or warranted” in these communications. Notably, the letter alleges that such a privilege training was conducted in Pittsburgh for Uber’s Autonomous Vehicle group.4. Illegal Recordings- Jacobs letter doesn’t just discuss espionage and the theft of trade secrets. In one paragraph, his lawyer alleges that Uber’s Investigations team grossly mishandled a sexual harassment case. The letter alleges that Uber “violated California Penal Code 632 and likely the Federal Wiretap Act” when the team recorded a call discussing sexual harassment allegations against a former employee without informing the other parties on the line that the call was being taped. The call was supposed to be part of an anonymous listening session. Instead, the letter goes on to allege, Uber’s Investigations team used the sensitive, illegally recorded information and “other egregious and purposeful violations of personal privacy” to identify an employee who subsequently left Uber. The company is widely known to have had systemic issues around sexual harassment and discrimination internally.5. Possible FCPA Violations- According to the letter, Jacobs had reason to believe the company was violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits bribery of foreign government officials by companies. The letter says that Uber’s violations “would likely be shown through discoverable evidence.” It indicates that Uber targeted foreign government officials as a way of attempting to unlock markets where regulators and law enforcement still limited the company’s operations. The letter also says that Jacobs knew of instances where Uber overpaid third-party vendors, with the expectation they would use the additional money to “purchase information” for the company.