Uber’s new ‘good cop’ tack to face test in US city tussles

Bloomberg

Uber is testing out a new conciliatory tone in London, where officials said they wouldn’t renew the ride-hailing service’s operating license. It’s going to have ample opportunity to see if that approach will work in the US.
San Francisco’s city attorney is investigating whether Uber Technologies Inc. is a public nuisance. In New York, officials are mulling ways to tighten controls on ride-hailing, including requiring a quarter of all trips come with wheelchair-accessible vehicles. And Seattle has passed an ordinance to make it easier for Uber drivers to unionise.
“Uber is at a turning point with big-city governments,” Jon Orcutt, director of communications and advocacy for the TransitCenter, said of Uber and other ride-sharing companies. “London’s action to threaten to withdraw their license really could turn the corner in a more normal regulatory situation for Uber.”
London officials said the city would not renew Uber’s operating license, which is set to expire on September 30, because it isn’t “fit and proper to hold a private hire operator license.” The city cited a failure to do sufficient background checks on drivers, report crimes and a programme called “Greyball” used to avoid regulators.
In response, newly minted Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi released an open letter apologising “for the mistakes we’ve made” and acknowledging that the company “got things wrong along the way” during its rapid growth.
London is a critical global market for Uber, which could encourage the company to make regulatory concessions to remain on the streets, Orcutt said. That stands in contrast with the company’s sharp-elbowed approach under co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick.
Uber ruffled feathers in city halls in several major US cities that struggled to corral the company during its growth. It raised the ire of local officials and incumbent taxi drivers by compiling a track record of skirting traditional taxi-industry regulations and refusing to share trip data and other records sought by city officials.
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera in July requested court orders for Uber and competitor Lyft Inc. to hand over years worth of records after the companies refused to comply with an earlier subpoena for the records. Herrera’s office is investigating whether the companies and their estimated 45,000 drivers in the city are creating a public nuisance, a finding that could subject the companies to civil monetary penalties and expose them to court injunctions restricting their operations in the city.
Uber has also come under pressure to produce driver activity records from New York City.

Uber, Kalanick sued by investors
Bloomberg

Uber Technologies Inc. and former Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick were accused in a lawsuit of covering up a series of “illicit business tactics” while raising funds, leading to billions of dollars in losses for the ride-hailing giant’s investors.
The startup and its ex-CEO failed to reveal at least six instances of malfeasance while “successfully soliciting billions of dollars in private investment,” according to a complaint filed as a class action in San Francisco federal court.
A trade-secrets lawsuit by Waymo, a federal foreign bribery probe and fall-out from sexual harassment allegations are among the legal woes that have depressed shareholders’ investments in the company by 15 percent, according to the complaint.
“The company’s vaunted corporate culture was revealed to in truth consist of a toxic hotbed of misogyny, discrimination, and disregard for the law that threatened the company’s reputation, business and prospects,” according to the complaint filed on behalf of a Texas city’s firefighter pension fund by Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, one of the nation’s leading securities class-action firms.
The lawsuit adds to the wave of
litigation against Uber that continues to spill over from the Kalanick regime onto the newly appointed CEO
Dara Khosrowshahi.
Uber is in arbitration over a complaint filed by investors at Benchmark, which accused Kalanick of duping
the firm to gain control of three
board seats.
The “pervasive pattern of unlawful behaviour” at Uber forced Kalanick to resign as CEO in June, resulting in an exodus of high-level employees at the company and “impairing its business, operations and prospects,” according to the complaint. Among those who’ve left Uber this year were the company’s president and the heads of business, communications, engineering and self-driving cars.