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Engineer at the center of Waymo / Uber legal battle declares bankruptcy, Ars Technica

Engineer at the center of Waymo / Uber legal battle declares bankruptcy, Ars Technica

      Chapter 20 –

             

Levandowski was ordered to pay Waymo $ 728 million. He says he doesn’t have it.

      

      

        

between Google’s Waymo and Uber , has filed for Chapter # bankruptcy protection . The move comes shortly after a California federal judge confirmed that Levandowski owed Waymo $ million for theft of trade secrets.

Levandowski was an early member of Google’s self-driving car team, earning tens of millions of dollars for his efforts. Then in early 2016, he left Google to co-found a self-driving startup called Otto. A few months later, Uber acquired Otto in a deal reportedly worth around $ million.

But a forensic investigation by Google revealed that Levandowski had taken thousands of confidential technical documents with him on his way out the door — including schematics for Google’s cutting-edge lidar technology. Google sued Levandowski and Uber for theft of trade secrets. Google and Uber settled their lawsuit in , but Google’s battle with Levandowski continued.

In December 2020, an arbitrator ruled that Levandowski and one of his colleagues — ex-Googler and Otto co-founder Lior Ron — had breached their legal obligations to the search giant. Ron has settled with Google for $ 9.7 million, TechCrunch reports .

The arbitrator ruled that Levandowski owed Google $ 500 million. Reuters reports that a federal judge confirmed that ruling on Wednesday, triggering Levandowski’s bankruptcy filing.

In his bankruptcy filing, Levandowski says that he has fewer than $ million in assets , while he owes between $ (million and $) million to creditors — presumably including the $ (million he owes to Waymo.)

However, Levandowski may still be able to get Uber to pay the damages on his behalf. Uber indemnified Levandowski when it hired him in 2019. However, Reuters notes that, in a regulatory filing, Uber said it expected to challenge paying Levandowski’s nine-figure judgment.

Levandowski also faces a looming criminal trial

                                                

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