Judge orders Uber to hand over to Waymo unredacted term sheet with Otto | Hacker News Reader

Judge orders Uber to hand over to Waymo unredacted term sheet with Otto

techcrunch.com

97 pointsicinnamon24 comments

I'm not sure there's much in the way of news here and I doubt there will be a bombshell in the term sheet. If there is, the real news will come when the terms are actually disclosed.

Yeah, I can't imagine what would be there of interest, except what would typically be interesting about such a document.

"Last week, Uber notified Levandowski that he either needs to deny that he downloaded and took any documents from Google, or to hand over the documents to Google. Otherwise, he would be at risk of getting fired from Uber. Uber has already removed Levandowski from working on any projects related to LiDAR technology.

Levandowski’s lawyers argued that the court’s order to Uber, as well as Uber’s threat to Levandowski, would violate his constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination."

This is the actually interesting part of the article. Judge Alsop directly addressed the Constitutionality of compelling Uber to use any means necessary, including termination. I doubt that Levandowski's attorneys will prevail.

That fifth amendment claim always seemed really bogus to me. Levanowski, who is not one of the parties of the suit, wants to prohibit Uber from turning over information to Waymo, because the information may incriminate Levandowski. Um, so? Why is that a reason for the court not to allow it? I don't have a fifth amendment right to keep others from incriminating me!

Uber is claiming that it doesn't have the information, so only Levandowski can turn over the info according to them. Therefore it is still self-incrimination.

I think that information is the attorney-client privileged stuff; the 5th Amendment information is held by Levandowski (in my interpretation).

So Uber is saying, "We don't have any of the stolen documents; talk to Levandowski to get those"? And Levandowski is saying "I won't say anything about the stolen documents; Fifth Amendment"? That sounds reasonable...

... right up until Levandowski and/or Uber tried to use that approach to block disclosure of the name of the company that did the due diligence investigation. That bit of insane over-reach ruins my ability to see this as anything reasonable.

I agree with you.

If they're attempting to use the 5th Amendment to conceal that information, I assume it's only a matter of time before Judge Alsop compels Uber anyway. What duty does Uber, a separate entity, have to protect Levandowski if it retains a copy of the report?

> I assume it's only a matter of time before Judge Alsop compels Uber anyway.

For that information, he already has.

But Levandowski is Uber.

Well, Uber has some kind of agreement to defend Levandowski. And he's an employee. But no, Uber doesn't want Levandowski to be Uber. That would make Uber responsible for the theft of documents from Waymo, and fully in possession of the contents. That is not a position that Uber wants to be in...

I have a hard time believing the term sheet says something to the effect of, for $680 million we would like to purchase all your stolen documents please.

The article is more about the due diligence reports where it might out that Uber knew that there was stolen documents, which Uber seems keen on keeping out of Waymo's hands.

I agree; I think the "you steal the documents, we'll buy your fake company" agreements did take place, but they were all conducted verbally and so we're never going to see a smoking gun. But this will help establish that Uber knew or should've known that Levandowski had the stuff, at which point they will be hard-pressed to come up with an alternate explanation as to why they went ahead with the deal.

Presuming you're right, then Uber's due diligence report should have been very carefully tailored. They wouldn't want it to look like they hadn't done their due diligence if all this came out, but they also wouldn't want it to look like they knew. It should be a masterpiece of tapdancing. I look forward to the fallout from Waymo getting to read it.

My understanding is that the due diligence report was by an independent company that does such reports as part of its regular business, and so was motivated to make it honest.

Also, if the due diligence report said there was nothing suspicious about the deal, then why is Uber going to such truly extraordinary lengths to try to keep Waymo from seeing it?

If Uber knew about the stolen documents, then presumably they would be super careful not to put anything about them in writing.

I assume the whole lot to be verbal promises between friends and printouts of documents which can later be "lost" leaving no trace.

Uber isn't stupid - if they're doing something wrong, and suspect later litigation, they aren't going to let anyone write about it.

You'd think so, but Uber has also been pinged by a Judge for handing over email which, among other things, says to "use encrypted email or chat", specifically "to avoid discovery issues":

* https://theintercept.com/2016/07/29/federal-judge-rips-uber-...

* https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/20...

Or in other words, the intersection of people who make excellent criminals and people who engage in criminal activity (as opposed to putting those skills to other uses) is pretty small.

And even if you're in that category, chances are at least one of your work colleagues is not.

That's honestly "common". I've seen it a number of times emails along the line of "let's not talk about this via email but let's discuss it only over the phone" - in many other companies/situations.

Sure. In the context of an already-filed lawsuit, however, that's asking for trouble. The other side has the legal right to discover relevant documents that you hold; deliberately trying to make that harder during a court case is arguably unethical, and is certainly frowned on by judges.

Term sheets are prepared by an army of lawyers (from both sides). When negotiating a term sheet, the term sheet goes back and forth a dozen times - redacting and adapting each single comma of the draft. I agree, I doubt that somewhere there will be a "Uber agrees to buy stolen IPs". Lawyers would have killed anything smaller than that.

One of the most fascinating things to me about these sorts of proceedings is the multiple levels on which they operate. From a top level (the complaint) all the way down to preparation for various exits that try to minimize damage.

Well, if you're paying the kinds of amounts these guys are for legal firms, I'd expect them to have an answer for any contingency.

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