Ex-Google Car Project Engineer in Plea Deal -- WSJ
March 20 2020 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Elizabeth Wollman
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (March 20, 2020).
Anthony Levandowski, the engineer charged in August with 33
counts of trade-secret theft from Google's self-driving car
project, reached a deal with U.S. prosecutors in which he will
plead guilty to one count and the remaining charges will be
dropped.
According to a court filing Thursday, Mr. Levandowski will plead
guilty to the last count in the indictment, charging him with theft
and attempted theft of trade secrets related to "Project
Chauffeur," as Google's autonomous vehicle program was called at
the time. Specifically, Mr. Levandowski said he downloaded a weekly
update for the program "with the intent to use it to benefit
someone other than Google," the legal filing shows.
"Mr. Levandowski accepts responsibility and is looking forward
to resolving this matter," Miles Ehrlich, a lawyer for Mr.
Levandowski, said in a statement. "Mr. Levandowski is a young man
with enormous talents and much to contribute to the fast-moving
world of AI and AV and we hope that this plea will allow him to
move on with his life and focus his energies where they matter
most."
Mr. Levandowski left Google's self-driving car unit, Waymo, in
2016 and helped start a company soon acquired by Uber Technologies
Inc.
Google parent Alphabet Inc. sued Uber in 2017, claiming that Mr.
Levandowski stole more than 14,000 confidential files before
leaving Google. Waymo and Uber settled the lawsuit in 2018, but not
before the judge in the case asked federal prosecutors to
investigate Uber and Mr. Levandowski over possible trade-secret
theft.
"Mr. Levandowski's guilty plea in a criminal hearing today
brings to an end a seminal case for our company and the
self-driving industry, and underscores the value of Waymo's
intellectual property," a spokeswoman for Waymo said in a
statement.
According to the plea agreement, Mr. Levandowski agreed to a
level 17 offense, which has federal guidelines for a sentence of 24
to 30 months in prison. He also agreed to pay Waymo $756,499
restitution.
The plea agreement will resolve the criminal charges against Mr.
Levandowski, but there are outstanding issues with his previous
employers.
Earlier this month, a judge ordered Mr. Levandowski to pay $179
million to Google, the sum of an award determined in December by an
arbitration panel plus interest and lawyers' fees. The same day of
the legal judgment, Mr. Levandowski filed for bankruptcy, listing
estimated assets of $50 million to $100 million and estimated
liabilities of $100 million to $500 million.
Uber acknowledged in a recent regulatory filing that it has an
indemnification agreement with Mr. Levandowski tied to his
employment, but the two are in a dispute over whether the company
is responsible for the arbitration award.
A spokesman for Uber declined to comment.
Preetika Rana contributed to this article.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 20, 2020 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024