Uber signs are placed at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, USA on July 10. DAVID SWANSON/Reuters
As Uber aggressively entered markets around the world, the ride-sharing service lobbied political leaders to loosen labor and taxi laws, used a “stop switch” to thwart regulators and law enforcement, funneled money through Bermuda and other tax havens, and considered portrayed violence against its leaders as a way to win public sympathy, according to a report published on Sunday.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a nonprofit network of investigative reporters, searched internal Uber texts, emails, invoices and other documents to provide what it called “unprecedented insight into the ways Uber defies taxi laws and violates workers’ rights’.
The documents were first leaked to the British newspaper The Guardian, which shared them with the consortium.
In a written declaration. Uber spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker acknowledged past “mistakes” and said CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, hired in 2017, had been “tasked with transforming every aspect of how Uber operates… When we say, that Uber is a different company today, we mean that literally: 90% of Uber’s current employees joined after Dara became CEO.”
Founded in 2009, Uber aims to circumvent taxi regulations and offer cheap transportation through a ride-sharing app. The consortium’s Uber files revealed the extraordinary lengths the company went to to establish itself in nearly 30 countries.
The company’s lobbyists — including former aides to President Barack Obama — are pressuring government officials to end their investigations, rewrite labor and taxi laws and relax background checks on drivers, the papers show.
The investigation found that Uber used “stealth technology” to fend off government investigations. The company, for example, used a “kill switch” that cut off access to Uber’s servers and blocked authorities from seizing evidence during raids in at least six countries. During a police crackdown in Amsterdam, Uber Files reported, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick personally issued an order: “Please hit the kill switch as soon as possible … Access must be shut down in AMS (Amsterdam).”
The consortium also reported that Kalanick saw the threat of violence against Uber drivers in France by injured taxi drivers as a way to garner public support. “Violence guarantees success(s),” Kalanick wrote to colleagues.
In response to the consortium, Kalanick spokesman Devon Spurgeon said the former CEO “never suggested that Uber should profit from violence at the expense of driver safety.”
Uber’s filings say the company reduced its tax bill by millions of dollars by sending profits through Bermuda and other tax havens, then “attempted to deflect attention from its tax obligations by helping authorities collect taxes from its drivers”.
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