Uber's (UBER), which is already facing bombshell revelations over its aggressive business practices, is now facing serious allegations in a new court case over its failure to protect women passengers.
The company has been dealing with the leak of a wide range of confidential files that expose the inner-workings of the company between 2013 and 2017, when co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick was head of the company.
The leak contains communications between Kalanick and his top brass at the Silicon Valley company as they pushed into other countries, allegedly breaking laws and taxi regulations in the process.
Mark MacGann, Uber's former chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, named himself as person who leaked the files to The Guardian earlier this week.
“It is my duty to speak up and help governments and parliamentarians right some fundamental wrongs,” he said, according to the paper. “Morally, I had no choice in the matter.”
There has been international fallout from the leaks as French President Emmanuel Macron has been caught up in the scandal due to his communications with the company when he was the country's economy minister.
Now there are fresh claims against the company.
Uber Safety Report Fallout
In June, Uber released its second U.S. Safety Report.
In the report the company said that there had been 998 sexual assault incidents on its platform, including 141 rape reports in 2020 alone.
In the wake of the report, attorneys at Slater Slater Schulman LLP representing about 550 clients, filed a civil action lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court.
The suit represents women who allege they were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, sexually battered, raped, falsely imprisoned, stalked, harassed, or otherwise attacked by Uber drivers after using the ride sharing app.
According to the complaint, Uber knew as early as 2014 that its drivers were sexually assaulting and raping female passengers. Eight years on the company still hasn't been able to stop.
In 2019 and 2020 alone, the company said it received nearly 4,000 reports of the five most severe categories of sexual assault.
The lawyers also criticize Uber's "longstanding policy" of not reporting "any criminal activity - even assaults and rape - to law enforcement authorities."
Uber did not respond to a request for comment.
'A Global Influence Juggernaut'
The "Uber Files," report is a global investigation into a trove of 124,000 confidential documents from the tech company that were leaked to the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The report charged that the ride-sharing giant built a powerful lobbying effort, used to influence lawmakers and key policy officials, and leveraged attacks on its riders to establish sympathy with politicians.
"Uber built a global influence juggernaut – which included an impressive roster of former government officials – and held undisclosed meetings with politicians to ask for favors, including dropping probes and changing policies on workers’ rights," the consortium tweeted.
Among the more starling revelations according to the report, Kalanick downplayed concerns about potential violence against Uber drivers by traditional taxi groups in France and in fact saw them as an opportunity to build support for Uber. Roughly 2,000 cab drivers staged an anti-Uber rally in and around Paris in 2016.
"If we have 50,000 riders they won't and can't do anything,” he said in a group chat in 2016. "Violence guarantee[s] success."
