Per reporter: Zhang Lingxiao Per reporter: Tan Yuhan
Image source: Visual China _VCG111318136540
On July 10, local time, an Uber Files confidential document was exposed, which disclosed Uber Corporation (UBER, The share price of $21.19, with a market capitalization of $41.61 billion), expanded its global business in a variety of illegal ways between 2013 and 2017, including attempts to lobby politicians and recruit politicians with a view to rewriting the law, maliciously using drivers to pave the way for its business expansion, and using technology to obstruct law enforcement officers from investigating data systems.
Commenting on the document, Uber responded, "We have not and will not make excuses for past behaviors that are clearly inconsistent with our current values." Instead, we want the public to judge us based on what we've done over the past five years and how we'll perform in the years to come. ”
After the filing came to light, Uber shares fell 5.15 percent to $21.19 percent on Monday and continued to fall 1.09 percent ahead of market hours on Tuesday.
Uber's "network of relationships" involves politicians from multiple countries
The leaked confidential documents contained more than 124,000 records involving emails, text messages and social media calls between Uber's top leadership.
The Guardian confirmed that the disclosure of the document was made by Mark MacGann, a former top lobbyist for Uber's European division. McGann said the decision to make the document public was because he believed Uber deliberately flouted the laws of dozens of countries and raised misconceptions about the benefits of Uber's gig economy model for drivers.
McGann, 52, admitted to The Guardian that as one of Uber's top brass, he was responsible for and remorseful for his actions.
The Guardian shared this confidential document about Uber with the nonprofit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and mined and parsed it.
The documents reveal that Uber founder Travis Kalanick has built a complex network of multinational political and business figures in the course of the company's international expansion, including French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron, US President Biden and former European Commission Vice President Nelly Cross and other internationally renowned politicians.
In 2014, Uber hooked up with Emmar Macron, then France's economy minister, and thus began their "secret alliance." In October 2014, Macron held a closed-door meeting with Kalanick and other Uber executives and made many important "progresses," the documents show.
In the years since, Macron has stood for Uber several times, including publicly endorsing the Uber model, signing a decree relaxing the requirements for Uber's driver license, and developing a regulatory framework for ride-sharing services for Uber.
Regarding the relationship between Uber and Macron, a spokesman for the French presidential office argued on July 10: "His duties require him to meet and communicate with the heads of many companies." During those years, businesses in the service sector underwent dramatic changes that had to boost them by removing administrative and regulatory barriers. ”
During the 2016 Davos meeting, more than a dozen Uber executives attended the meeting and met with world leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron, then-US Vice President Biden, then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, and then Estonian President Thomas Hendrick Ilves through various intermediary relationships.
Uber spent as much as $90 million on lobbying and public relations in 2016, documents show.
According to statistics, between 2014 and 2016, Uber executives held more than 100 meetings with senior government officials in 17 countries. To better connect with these dignitaries, billionaires and top academics, Uber has also commissioned an advisory firm to develop a list of more than 1,850 "stakeholders" in 29 countries around the world.
Encourage drivers to protest violently And use the "stop switch" to evade inspections
In addition to its efforts in the political and business decision-making circles, Uber also uses drivers to implement aggressive expansion strategies.
In 2016, Uber expanded aggressively in the European market, squeezing the local taxi market, met with backlash from taxi drivers in Belgium, Spain, Italy and France.
Some taxi drivers sparked violent clashes during the protests in Paris, the documents show. Kalanick ordered French executives to "retaliate," that is, to encourage Uber drivers to protest relatively, thus further provoking antagonism between the two sides, triggering greater unrest, forcing the government to introduce countermeasures and change laws.
Some Uber executives have mentioned in the discussion that Uber exposed details of a near-fatal violence and other attacks on Uber drivers to the media in order to highlight the negative image of the taxi industry.
In fact, when executives worried that having Uber drivers in protest would put drivers in danger of violence, Kalanick retorted, "I think it's worth it." Violence, he said, is a guarantee of success.
On July 10, a spokesman for Kalanick said kalanick had never advised Uber to use violence at the expense of driver safety; Moreover, he never authorized any action or plan that would impede the impartiality of the justice of any country.
In addition, Uber has used illegal technical means to evade a series of investigations by local law enforcement.
As regulators in several countries gather evidence of Uber's illegal operations and conduct repeated raids on the company's local offices, Uber developed a technology called a "kill switch" to respond to the searches. The technology was able to quickly cut off access to Uber's office equipment from the company's primary data system.
According to Uber confidential documents, the "kill switch" has been used at least 12 times in countries such as France, the Netherlands, Belgium, India, Hungary and Romania, and has been tried and tested, and law enforcement has no choice. One Uber executive even said "proudly" in a debriefing text message, "We've used the script many times, and the hardest thing now is for us to pretend to be surprised [by the downtime]." ”
Regarding the use of the technology, an Uber spokesperson said the "kill switch" was discontinued in 2017 after Dara Khosrowshahi succeeded Kalanick as the new Uber CEO.
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