Angela Padilla of Uber. Courtesy Photo.

Uber Technologies Inc. deputy general counsel Angela Padilla appeared before a federal judge in San Francisco Wednesday morning  as part of a pretrial hearing in the legal showdown that pits the ride-hailing company against Google's autonomous car unit, Waymo.

Padilla was called to testify after the court revealed that an inflammatory letter had been written to the deputy GC by a former Uber employee, alleging that Uber used secretive techniques, such as encryption, to conceal intelligence it had gathered on other companies, and to keep this information out of reach during litigation.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the of the Northern District of California gave Padilla a grilling, criticizing her for failing to produce the letter in the ongoing trade secrets battle with Waymo.

The unusual decision to ask an in-house counsel to appear before a judge came following the uncovering of the letter from former Uber employee Richard Jacobs, which said that Uber used disappearing and encrypted messages as well as non-Uber laptops to keep information off of the company's servers. It also said there was an internal unit at the company solely dedicated to “stealing trade secrets, code base and competitive intelligence from competitors.”

These revelations, which came as part of a separate but related trade secret theft investigation by the local U.S. Attorney's office, contributed to Alsup's choice to delay trial—previously slated to begin on Dec. 4.

In her testimony Wednesday, Padilla called Jacobs an extortionist, and said the letter was “fantastical” and had “little merit.”

Padilla testified that upon receiving the May letter via email from Jacobs, she passed it along to Joe Spiegler and Sidney Majalya, lawyers in Uber's compliance department, at a meeting where Uber's then-CLO Salle Yoo was present. Padilla stated she was told by Spiegler and Majalya not to show the letter to anyone else while the compliance department worked with outside counsel from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr to determine the veracity of Jacobs' numerous allegations, saying it would obstruct the investigation. Padilla said she did not think to pass the document to any of the other in-house lawyers at Uber working on the Waymo case or to outside counsel on either side.  

“When the letter first came in, that never occurred to me,” she said. “Because we receive a lot of letters from unhappy employees and a lot of them make wild crazy allegations that are never substantiated. We wanted to get Wilmer Hale on board to look into it and see whether any of it was true.”

The internal investigation ended earlier this month, though findings are still confidential and Padilla said she has not yet seen them. Alsup questioned Padilla as to why the letter was shared with then-CEO Travis Kalanick, who was not involved in the internal investigation, but not lawyers involved in the Waymo case.

And Alsup wanted other answers from Padilla too.

When the Uber lawyer stated she had been transparent with the letter and its allegations by voluntarily submitting it to the Northern District of California U.S. Attorney's office later on, in June, following the completion of Jacobs' exit deal, Alsup noted that its extremely rare for him to have received an evidentiary document from the U.S. attorney. He said it's the first time he's seen it happen in this court.

“Maybe you're in trouble,” Alsup told Padilla. “This document should have been produced … You wanted this case to go to trial so that they didn't have the document, then it turns out the U.S. attorney did an unusual thing. Maybe the guy [Jacobs] is a disgruntled employee but that's not your decision to make, that's the jury's.”

Padilla justified withholding the letter from lawyers working on the case because she said she believed it would be found by the Waymo team during their search of Uber's servers, though Padilla was not one of those targeted in the search. Waymo's lawyers stated they did not find the email during discovery.

“The letter sat in my email system and the email system of many people in the company,” Padilla said. “All of which I thought would be searched, so I thought it would be picked up and reviewed as part of the discovery course.” 

The head of Waymo's legal team, Charles Verhoeven of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, then questioned why Padilla's company gave Jacobs a $4.5 million exit deal from the company and asked him to consult with Wilmer Hale lawyers on improving Uber for a year post-termination if he was nothing more than a lying extortionist. Padilla testified that Jacobs was the only such “extortionist” to be kept on as a consultant.

She said that the agreement with Jacobs was used to keep the matter out of court, where the costs of an outside legal team and workplace disruption would have cost more than $4.5 million, on top of potentially unsubstantiated allegations harming Uber's public reputation. The consulting Jacobs did was mostly related to security, Padilla stated.

But Alsup wasn't convinced.

“Here's the way it looks,” he said. “You said it was a fantastic BS letter with no merit and yet you paid $4.5 million. To someone like me and people out there, mortals, that's a lot of money, that's a lot of money. And people don't pay that kind of money for BS and you certainly don't hire them as consultant if you think everything they've got to contribute is BS. On the surface it looks like you covered this up.”

The trial's new start date is still to be announced. It's possible that more of Uber's in-house lawyers and employees will be called into testify in light of Padilla's statements.

Angela Padilla of Uber. Courtesy Photo.

Uber Technologies Inc. deputy general counsel Angela Padilla appeared before a federal judge in San Francisco Wednesday morning  as part of a pretrial hearing in the legal showdown that pits the ride-hailing company against Google's autonomous car unit, Waymo.

Padilla was called to testify after the court revealed that an inflammatory letter had been written to the deputy GC by a former Uber employee, alleging that Uber used secretive techniques, such as encryption, to conceal intelligence it had gathered on other companies, and to keep this information out of reach during litigation.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the of the Northern District of California gave Padilla a grilling, criticizing her for failing to produce the letter in the ongoing trade secrets battle with Waymo.

The unusual decision to ask an in-house counsel to appear before a judge came following the uncovering of the letter from former Uber employee Richard Jacobs, which said that Uber used disappearing and encrypted messages as well as non-Uber laptops to keep information off of the company's servers. It also said there was an internal unit at the company solely dedicated to “stealing trade secrets, code base and competitive intelligence from competitors.”

These revelations, which came as part of a separate but related trade secret theft investigation by the local U.S. Attorney's office, contributed to Alsup's choice to delay trial—previously slated to begin on Dec. 4.

In her testimony Wednesday, Padilla called Jacobs an extortionist, and said the letter was “fantastical” and had “little merit.”

Padilla testified that upon receiving the May letter via email from Jacobs, she passed it along to Joe Spiegler and Sidney Majalya, lawyers in Uber's compliance department, at a meeting where Uber's then-CLO Salle Yoo was present. Padilla stated she was told by Spiegler and Majalya not to show the letter to anyone else while the compliance department worked with outside counsel from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr to determine the veracity of Jacobs' numerous allegations, saying it would obstruct the investigation. Padilla said she did not think to pass the document to any of the other in-house lawyers at Uber working on the Waymo case or to outside counsel on either side.  

“When the letter first came in, that never occurred to me,” she said. “Because we receive a lot of letters from unhappy employees and a lot of them make wild crazy allegations that are never substantiated. We wanted to get Wilmer Hale on board to look into it and see whether any of it was true.”

The internal investigation ended earlier this month, though findings are still confidential and Padilla said she has not yet seen them. Alsup questioned Padilla as to why the letter was shared with then-CEO Travis Kalanick, who was not involved in the internal investigation, but not lawyers involved in the Waymo case.

And Alsup wanted other answers from Padilla too.

When the Uber lawyer stated she had been transparent with the letter and its allegations by voluntarily submitting it to the Northern District of California U.S. Attorney's office later on, in June, following the completion of Jacobs' exit deal, Alsup noted that its extremely rare for him to have received an evidentiary document from the U.S. attorney. He said it's the first time he's seen it happen in this court.

“Maybe you're in trouble,” Alsup told Padilla. “This document should have been produced … You wanted this case to go to trial so that they didn't have the document, then it turns out the U.S. attorney did an unusual thing. Maybe the guy [Jacobs] is a disgruntled employee but that's not your decision to make, that's the jury's.”

Padilla justified withholding the letter from lawyers working on the case because she said she believed it would be found by the Waymo team during their search of Uber's servers, though Padilla was not one of those targeted in the search. Waymo's lawyers stated they did not find the email during discovery.

“The letter sat in my email system and the email system of many people in the company,” Padilla said. “All of which I thought would be searched, so I thought it would be picked up and reviewed as part of the discovery course.” 

The head of Waymo's legal team, Charles Verhoeven of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, then questioned why Padilla's company gave Jacobs a $4.5 million exit deal from the company and asked him to consult with Wilmer Hale lawyers on improving Uber for a year post-termination if he was nothing more than a lying extortionist. Padilla testified that Jacobs was the only such “extortionist” to be kept on as a consultant.

She said that the agreement with Jacobs was used to keep the matter out of court, where the costs of an outside legal team and workplace disruption would have cost more than $4.5 million, on top of potentially unsubstantiated allegations harming Uber's public reputation. The consulting Jacobs did was mostly related to security, Padilla stated.

But Alsup wasn't convinced.

“Here's the way it looks,” he said. “You said it was a fantastic BS letter with no merit and yet you paid $4.5 million. To someone like me and people out there, mortals, that's a lot of money, that's a lot of money. And people don't pay that kind of money for BS and you certainly don't hire them as consultant if you think everything they've got to contribute is BS. On the surface it looks like you covered this up.”

The trial's new start date is still to be announced. It's possible that more of Uber's in-house lawyers and employees will be called into testify in light of Padilla's statements.