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Perhaps this is standard practice, in the valley, to make the company that acquired your company defend you in the event that the acquisition resulted in a laws
by bitmapbrother 10y ago
Perhaps this is standard practice, in the valley, to make the company that acquired your company defend you in the event that the acquisition resulted in a lawsuit, but this revelation just adds another red flag to the already long list of red flags that Uber ignored when acquiring Otto. IMO, Uber clearly knew what he did, either through disclosure or due diligence, and disregarded it. Considering their company culture of playing fast and loose with the rules until you get caught this is not surprising.
>"Waymo has claimed that Levandowski signed an agreement with Uber’s lawyers just a few days after quitting his job at Google, requiring Uber to defend him if the company’s acquisition of Otto resulted in a lawsuit."
>"Mr. Levandowski argues that he is entitled to relief under the Fifth Amendment because production of the unredacted privilege log could potentially incriminate him. We are not persuaded that the district court erred in its ruling requiring defendants to produce an unredacted privilege log,” the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled."
>"The order also opens the door for Waymo to request a copy of the due diligence report that Uber commissioned while it was in the process of acquiring Otto. Waymo has claimed that the due diligence report could contain evidence that Uber knew Otto was using stolen technology"
- azernik 10y agoNot just in the Valley, and not just in the case of M&A events; generally companies sign agreements with their executives to defend them in the case of lawsuits for actions they take in their professional roles. Often, to avoid conflicts of interests between corporate counsel and individual counsel, this works out as the company paying either directly for lawyers for the company officer, or paying for individual liability insurance.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tyingq 10y agoThe article seems to indicate the document was signed days after his departure from Google, presumably before Otto was a paper entity. That seems a little unusual.
- alain94040 10y agoYou are missing the key point: that agreement was not signed when Otto was acquired by Uber, it was signed days after Levandowski left Google, before there should have been any discussions with Uber regarding the acquisition of a startup that didn't exist yet. That is really bad optics.
- ithinkinstereo 10y agoAre there any legitimate reasons why Uber would sign this agreement? Why would a company sign an agreement with the founder of a startup about the acquisition of said startup before it even exists? This lends credence to Google/Waymo's argument that Uber and Levandowski where scheming from the get-go. Bad optics, indeed.
- woodandsteel 10y agoWaymo claims it has evidence that Levandowski and Urber were talking for months before he left Waymo. In addition there is the fact the he secretly started a self-driving car company at least a year before. The whole thing looks like he and Uber planned the whole scheme beforehand.
- bitmapbrother 10y agoI wasn't aware of that. That makes this whole thing look even more nefarious.
- yawaworht12 10y agoI don't know about Silicon Valley, but I've had such a provision in one previous employment contract because the position was high enough up that I'd be legally liable. The clause was added by my lawyer because he said it was standard practice to have it if you're the officer of a company or in a position where to possibility of liability exists. I would expect anyone signing a non-standard run-of-the-mill at-will employment contract would have their own lawyer and that any good lawyer would ask for such a provision.