Uber Robocar Project at Risk as Engineer May Face Charges
- Judge is told engineer will invoke legal right not to testify
- Waymo has ‘good chance’ of winning injunction, judge warns
Uber Robocar in Jeopardy as Engineer May Face Charges
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A judge said he’s inclined to slap an order on Uber Technologies Inc. that may impede its self-driving car program after being told its director won’t testify because he faces possible criminal action for allegedly stealing Alphabet Inc.’s trade secrets.
A lawyer for Anthony Levandowski, who left Alphabet’s Waymo unit last year and is now head of Uber’s driverless car project, told a San Francisco federal judge Wednesday the engineer would be asserting his rights under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, protecting a person from incriminating himself, according to a transcript of the closed-door court hearing.