Uber-Waymo Lawsuit Got Upgraded To Criminal Case, Could Result In Jail Time

Just when Uber thought that its legal battle against Waymo would end up costing them their self-driving business at worst, here comes the hammer of justice to prove them wrong. The judge handling the case has already referred the lawsuit to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which could then result in a criminal investigation. If so, some Uber executives could be looking at jail time.

The judge presiding over the case between Uber and Google’s self-driving division Waymo is Judge William Alsup, Tech Crunch reports, and he made the referral Thursday night. If it goes through and the U.S. Attorney’s Office gets involved, anyone involved in the theft of company secrets from Waymo could face severe legal consequences, with Anthony Levandowski being at the top of the list.

Levandowski is basically the center and cause of the whole legal dispute, to begin with since he is the one who is accused of perpetrating the theft. According to Waymo, the Uber executive stole thousands of documents full of sensitive autonomous driving secrets from the company when he was still its employee, a lot of which has to do with LIDAR technology.

When Uber was asked to produce these documents in court, Levandowski decided to plead the fifth. This plea was struck down by the judge, who then said that the self-driving firm has to comply with Waymo’s demand.

Uber has declined to comment on the referral of the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Business Insider reports, but it did have something to say about the denial by the court for an arbitration. This would have taken the spotlight away from Uber and focus it on Levandowski and Waymo.

“It is unfortunate that Waymo will be permitted to avoid abiding by the arbitration promise it requires its employees to make,” a spokesperson from Uber said. “We remain confident in our case and welcome the chance to talk about our independently developed technology in any forum."