Uber-Waymo trial delays

SAN FRANCISCO: Uber Technologies Inc withheld evidence in a lawsuit filed by Alphabet Inc's Waymo, a U.S. judge said, delaying a trial to give Waymo time to review a letter alleging that Uber trained employees to steal trade secrets and hide their tracks.

The multibillion-dollar case, in which Waymo has accused Uber of stealing confidential information about its self-driving car designs, has hobbled Uber's autonomous vehicle ambitions. It is the highest-stakes legal challenge on a lengthy list of litigation that Uber's chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, inherited when he joined the company in August. Tuesday's hearing centered on a 37-page letter from a lawyer for former Uber security analyst Richard Jacobs, which Uber did not show Waymo as both sides prepared their cases. The letter turned up last week when U.S. District Judge William Alsup was informed of it by the U.S. Department of Justice, days before the trial was set to begin. The discovery led Alsup to issue a new order for Uber to compel Jacobs to appear in court.

Uber's not turning over the letter months ago when the company was asked to gather such documents raised the judge's ire, setting up one of the most heated hearings in the case to date. "I can't trust anything you say because it's been proven wrong so many times," Alsup told Uber at the hearing. "You're just making the impression that this is a total cover-up." Alsup agreed to Waymo's request to delay the jury trial scheduled for next week, saying in federal court in San Francisco that "if even half of what this letter says is true it would be a huge injustice to force Waymo to go to trial" as planned.

It was the second time the judge has agreed to delay a trial at Waymo's request. In October, he chided Uber lawyers for disclosing thousands of emails to Waymo just before the trial had been set to begin..