The investigation revealed how the company, after an allegation of rape by an Uber driver in New Delhi in December 2014, tried to shift the blame to government officials and used lobbying tactics to try to influence policy
An investigation has revealed how Uber used tactics that were morally questionable and potentially illegal during its global rise a decade ago.
The ‘Uber Files’ – information from 124,000 documents from 2013 to 2017 – obtained by The Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists comes as the latest blow for a company already mired in controversy.
The investigation involving dozens of news organisations showed that company officials leveraged the sometimes violent backlash from the taxi industry against drivers to garner support and evaded regulatory authorities as it looked to conquer new markets early in its history.
The cache includes unvarnished text and email exchanges between executives, with standouts from co-founder and former chief executive Travis Kalanick, who was forced to resign in 2017 following accusations of brutal management practices and multiple episodes of sexual and psychological harassment at the company.
Let’s take a look at what The Uber Files reveal about is operations in India and around the world:
‘Embrace the chaos’
As per Indian Express, less than a year into its launch in India, Uber’s then Asia Head, Allen Penn, on 23 August, 2014, sent an email to the team: “Embrace the chaos. It means you are doing something meaningful.”
The Uber Files show that a few months later, in the aftermath of an allegation of rape by an Uber driver in New Delhi in December 2014, the company executives, while officially expressing shock and empathy, tried to craft the narrative that government officials had carried out ‘faulty background checks’ on drivers.
As per Financial Express, Mark MacGann, then Uber’s Head of Public Policy for Europe and Middle East, wrote on 8 December: “We’re in crisis talks right now and the media is blazing…The Indian driver was indeed licensed, and the weakness/flaw appears to be in the local licensing scheme… the view in the US is that we can expect inquiries across our markets on the issue of background checks, in the light of what has happened in India.”
Niall Wass, then Uber’s Senior Vice President for Europe, Middle East and Africa, wrote on 9 December: “We had done what was required in terms of the Indian regulations. However it’s clear the checks required for a driver to obtain a commercial license from the authorities now appears to be insufficient as it appears the accused also had some previous rape allegations, which the Delhi police check did not identify (in what’s called a ‘character certificate.’).”
Shortly after the incident, MacGann sent a mail to the his team stating that it was not the company, but the Indian system that was responsible. He wrote: “we are in the process of platinum-plating our background checks in other regions, given the issue in India (where the official State system is at fault, not Uber).”
As a result of the incident, the services were banned in Delhi.
As per Mint, in an email titled “dealing with regulatory issues,” Penn, outlining how to stonewall inquiries from authorities, wrote: “Irrespective of what the competition and entrenched interests say, You and Uber are the ones improving India”.
“We will likely have both local and national issues in almost every city in India for the rest of your tenure at Uber… Don’t talk to the government or folks close to the government unless you have specifically discussed with Jordan (a reference to Jordan Condo, Uber’s Head of Public Policy for Asia)… we will generally stall, be unresponsive, and often say no to what they want. This is how we operate and it’s nearly always the best. Early quick meetings set us up for failure. Get comfortable with that approach… don’t let it distract you from your mission to dominate the market,” the email read, as per the report.
The files also revealed Uber’s attitude towards tax and regulation issues – using lobbying tactics to the hilt by preparing a list of “stakeholders” from the bureaucracy and political class to influence policy, and signing around a dozen Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) in different states — agreements that remained mostly on paper, as per Indian Express.
‘Violence guarantees success’
“Violence guarantee(s) success,” Kalanick messaged other company leaders as he pushed for a counter protest amid sometimes heated demonstrations in Paris in 2016 against Uber’s arrival in the market.
Uber’s rapid expansion leaned on subsidised drivers and discounted fares that undercut the taxi industry, and “often without seeking licenses to operate as a taxi and livery service,” reported The Washington Post, one of the media outlets involved in the probe.
Drivers across Europe had faced violent retaliation as taxi drivers felt their livelihoods threatened. The investigation found that “in some instances, when drivers were attacked, Uber executives pivoted quickly to capitalize” to seek public and regulatory support, the Post said.
According to The Guardian, Uber has adopted similar tactics in European countries including Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy, mobilizing drivers and encouraging them to complain to the police when they were victims of violence, in order to use media coverage to obtain concessions from the authorities.
A spokesperson for Kalanick strongly denied the findings as a “false agenda,” saying he “never suggested that Uber should take advantage of violence at the expense of driver safety.”
‘Kill switch’
The company’s blocking software, known internally as ‘kill switch’ was deployed in several countries including India.
The investigation also found that Uber worked to evade regulatory probes by leveraging a technological edge, the Post wrote.
It described an instance when Kalanick implemented a “kill switch” to remotely cut off access of devices in an Amsterdam office to Uber’s internal systems during a raid by authorities.
“Please hit the kill switch ASAP,” he wrote in an email to an employee.
“Access must be shut down in AMS (Amsterdam).”
Kalanick spokesperson Devon Spurgeon said the former chief executive “never authorised any actions or programs that would obstruct justice in any country.”
Kalanick “did not create, direct or oversee these systems set up by legal and compliance departments and has never been charged in any jurisdiction for obstruction of justice or any related offense,” she said.
As per The Guardian, Kalanick’s spokesperson added that the protocols, which did not delete data, were vetted and approved by Uber’s legal department, and the former Uber CEO was never charged in relation to obstruction of justice or a related offence.
As per The Guardian, executive Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, who ran Uber’s operations in western Europe, was involved in kill switch protocols.
Gore-Coty, who now runs Uber Eats, and sits on the company’s 11-strong executive team, said in a statement he regretted “some of the tactics used to get regulatory reform for ridesharing in the early days”.
Looking back, he said: “I was young and inexperienced and too often took direction from superiors with questionable ethics.”
The investigation charged that Uber’s actions defied laws and that executives were aware, citing one joking that they had become “pirates.”
Lobbying bigwigs
The reports say the files reveal Uber also lobbied governments to aid its expansion, finding in particular an ally in France’s Emmanuel Macron, who was economy minister from 2014 to 2016 and is now the country’s president.
The company believed Macron would encourage regulators “to be ‘less conservative’ in their interpretation of rules limiting the company’s operations,” the Post said.
Macron was an open supporter of Uber and the idea of turning France into a “start-up nation” in general, but the leaked documents suggest that the minister’s support even sometimes clashed with the leftist government’s policies.
The revelations sparked indignation among leftist politicians, who denounced the Uber-Macron links as against “all our rules, all our social rights and against workers’ rights,” and condemned the “pillage of the country.”
As per The Guardian, Uber executives also expressed contempt for elected officials who were who were less than enthusiastic towards the company.
After the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who was mayor of Hamburg at the time, pushed back against Uber lobbyists and insisted on paying drivers a minimum wage, an executive told colleagues he was “a real comedian”.
When then US vice-president, Joe Biden, a supporter of Uber at the time, was late to a meeting with the company at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Kalanick texted a colleague: “I’ve had my people let him know that every minute late he is, is one less minute he will have with me.”
‘Won’t make excuses for past behaviour’
Uber, however, placed the blame Sunday on previously publicised “mistakes” made by leadership under Kalanick.
Uber’s spokesperson said its kill switch software “should never have been used to thwart legitimate regulatory action” and it had stopped using the system in 2017, when Khosrowshahi replaced Kalanick as CEO, The Guardian reported.
“We’ve moved from an era of confrontation to one of collaboration, demonstrating a willingness to come to the table and find common ground with former opponents, including labour unions and taxi companies,” it said, noting that his replacement, Dara Khosrowshahi, “was tasked with transforming every aspect of how Uber operates.”
Mint quoted Jill Hazelbaker, Uber VP communications and public affairs, as saying: “We have not and will not make excuses for past behaviour that is clearly not in line with our present values. Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we’ve done over the last five years and what we will do in the years to come.”
With inputs from agencies
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