Rather, Uber has abdicated all responsibility for the text messages, passing the buck to Mr. Kalanick’s personal counsel at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (“Orrick”). Orrick has apparently retained its own digital forensics expert, who has recovered over 400 of the deleted text messages, including text messages Mr. Kalanick sent to Mr. Levandowski. Orrick represents that these text messages will be produced to Waymo by tomorrow, August 1.
None of the lawyers for Waymo, Uber, or Levandowski (who has been fired from Uber since the case began) responded to Ars’ request for comment as to whether these messages had been recovered or handed over to Waymo as part of the civil discovery process within the deadline.
In a related matter, newly released materials also show that Uber was willing to indemnify Levandowski and his co-founder, Lior Ron, from any legal liability as they were making the deal.
A January 26, 2016 e-mail from Cameron Poetzscher, an Uber vice president, to Travis Kalanick (then-CEO), showed surprised that the company would agree to such terms.
“Did you tell Anthony that you would indemnify them if they get sued by G as part of or after the deal?” he wrote. “They’re under that impression.”
In deposition testimony given June 19, 2017, Poetzscher told Waymo lawyers that Levandowski and Ron informed Uber that the acquisition came with strings attached.
“They told us it was a critical part of the deal,” Poetzscher said. “They wouldn’t do the deal without indemnity. So, we negotiated an indemnity that we were comfortable with, with a lot of safeguards for us.”
Later in the deposition, Poetzscher also re-iterated what Uber lawyers have said in court, that they were not seeking any proprietary materials from Waymo.
“On several occasions, we discussed with them, don’t bring anything,” he said. “We don’t want anything.”
More hearings are scheduled in the case for later this month.