Anthony Levandowski, a very prominent former Google executive who later moved to a company acquired by Uber, has been formally charged with the theft of trade secrets related to the development of technologies for self-driving vehicles. The accusations were formalized by the prosecutor of the Northern District of California, tracing the accusations made by Waymo (a company controlled by Alphabet, owner of Google) a couple of years ago against Levandowski, also for the theft of patents and industrial secrets.
After leaving Google, Levandowski founded Otto, a startup to develop self-driving trucks, which was acquired by Uber for about $ 700 million. According to the indictment, Levandowski stole thousands of documents from Waymo / Google to continue his self-driving vehicle projects and allow his startup to quickly catch up with the competition. Waymo's lawsuit already prompted Uber to fire Levandowski in 2017 and reach an out-of-court settlement to settle the dispute. Levandowski's lawyers argue that his client has done nothing wrong, and that he will defend himself in court against the charges.
Google sued Uber
