The Uber self-driving car lawsuit has met its logical end as both parties have agreed to a settlement which requires Uber to pay $245 million equivalent to 0.34 percent of its shares to Alphabet Inc’s Waymo. The settlement was declared final on Friday moments before the fifth day of testimony was about to commence in the San Francisco federal court.
Uber and Waymo locked horns with each other last year over a sensitive issue and the lawsuit that followed has since been termed as the first largest legal battle pertaining to autonomous vehicles. Waymo had sued Uber alleging that the latter’s self-driving car project head, Anthony Levandowski, who was once an engineer at Waymo, stole more than 14,000 confidential documents including the plans for the lidar laser sensor, compromising Waymo’s stance in the autonomous car market.
Uber fired Levandowski, immediately after the lawsuit was filed.
“While we do not believe that any trade secrets made their way from Waymo to Uber, nor do we believe that Uber has used any of Waymo’s proprietary information in its self-driving technology, we are taking steps with Waymo to ensure our Lidar and software represents just our good work,” Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber said in a statement released on Friday.
The ride-hailing company has suffered a huge blow in terms of their ambitions to speed up the release of self-driving cars. The settlement will allow Khosrowshahi to move ahead of yet another scandal.
While the settlement for Uber self-driving car lawsuit is in full effect, the US Department of Justice is conducting a separate, criminal investigation into the matter. Anthony Levandowski has not publicly commented on the allegations of stealing the important documents and law enforcers have not accused anyone as of yet.