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March 6, 2020 12:45 am

Engineer At the Center of Waymo/Uber Legal Battle Declares Bankruptcy

Anthony Levandowski, the controversial engineer at the center of the recent legal battle between Google's Waymo and Uber, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The move comes shortly after a California federal judge confirmed that Levandowski owed Waymo $179 million for theft of trade secrets. Ars Technica reports: Levandowski was an early member of Google's self-driving car team, earning tens of millions of dollars for his efforts. Then in early 2016, he left Google to co-found a self-driving startup called Otto. A few months later, Uber acquired Otto in a deal reportedly worth around $680 million. But a forensic investigation by Google revealed that Levandowski had taken thousands of confidential technical documents with him on his way out the door -- including schematics for Google's cutting-edge lidar technology. Google sued Levandowski and Uber for theft of trade secrets. Google and Uber settled their lawsuit in 2018, but Google's battle with Levandowski continued. In December 2019, an arbitrator ruled that Levandowski and one of his colleagues -- ex-Googler and Otto co-founder Lior Ron -- had breached their legal obligations to the search giant. Ron has settled with Google for $9.7 million, TechCrunch reports. The arbitrator ruled that Levandowski owed Google $179 million. Reuters reports that a federal judge confirmed that ruling on Wednesday, triggering Levandowski's bankruptcy filing. In his bankruptcy filing, Levandowski says that he has fewer than $100 million in assets, while he owes between $100 million and $500 million to creditors -- presumably including the $179 million he owes to Waymo. However, Levandowski may still be able to get Uber to pay the damages on his behalf. Uber indemnified Levandowski when it hired him in 2016. However, Reuters notes that, in a regulatory filing, Uber said it expected to challenge paying Levandowski's nine-figure judgment.

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