UPDATED 23:36 EDT / MAY 25 2017

EMERGING TECH

Judge orders Uber to hand over Otto due-diligence report to Waymo

The judge presiding over the Waymo Inc. lawsuit alleging that Uber Technologies Inc. stole its self-driving car technology has delivered another blow to the ride-hailing giant.

The ruling says Uber must hand over an unredacted version of a due-diligence report it prepared prior to its purchase of Otto, the company founded by former Google Inc. engineer Anthony Levandowski (pictured, right), who is at the center of the theft allegations. Waymo argues that the report will provide concrete evidence that Uber conspired with Levandowski to steal its self-driving car technology as far back as 2015.

The acquisition, which was announced in August 2016 with Uber paying a whopping $680 million for the company, was considered to be somewhat odd at the time given that Otto had never delivered a product and had itself only launched in May the same year. In this case, Waymo is suggesting that the buy was essentially a criminal conspiracy that was nothing more than a front for Uber to steal the technology it had developed.

The due diligence report “likely contains information that is responsive to many of the questions Mr. Levandowski refused to answer,” Waymo said in a court filing.

It’s not clear whether Uber has complied with the ruling or intends to appeal it. The company previously argued that it could not hand over the documents because they include privileged client-attorney correspondence. Levandowski, who is not a defendant in the trial but is nonetheless central to it, has previously invoked the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, the provision that protects individuals from being compelled to be witnesses against themselves in criminal cases, to avoid answering questions on the matter. While he is legally entitled to invoke the Fifth, the fact he refuses to testify has added further suspicion about handling of Waymo’s intellectual property.

The latest ruling follows one earlier this month that was regarded as a win of sorts for Uber. The judge in that case ruled that it could continue its development of self-driving technology after Waymo asked the court to have it shut down pending the outcome of the trial.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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