The US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] ordered [opinion] Uber [corporate website] engineer removed from the self-driving division of the company in a ruling made public Monday. The case Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies Inc. [materials, law360] centers on engineer Anthony Levandowski [Guardian report] who may have stolen information from self-driving technology company Waymo [corporate website] before becoming employed at Uber. The two transportation companies are in a race to bring self-driving capabilities using Lidar technology [Scientific American backgrounder] to the market. The court ordered the engineer to not work for the driving program and be relocated elsewhere in the company.

By way of summary, this order finds plaintiff Waymo LLC has shown compelling evidence that its former star engineer, Anthony Levandowski, downloaded over 14,000 confidential files from Waymo immediately before leaving his employment there. The evidence shows that, both before and after his departure, Levandowski and defendant Uber Technologies,Inc., planned for Uber to acquire Levandowski’s new companies, defendants Ottomotto LLC and Otto Trucking LLC, and to hire Levandowski as the head of its self-driving car efforts. Moreover, defendants and Levandowski anticipated and took steps to defend against litigation with Waymo in connection with his move to Uber.

The court also ordered all communication between Levadowski and Uber as well as compliance communications to be turned over in discovery by May 31st.

Uber continues to have legal battles over its technology and organization. Last week the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued [JURIST report] a non-binding opinion finding that Uber is a transportation company subject to additional regulations and fines. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it has launched [JURIST report] a criminal investigation into Uber for the use of a software tool that helped drivers evade local transport regulators. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced [JURIST report] in January that Uber Technologies agreed to pay $20 million to settle a claim that the ride-hailing company had engaged in misleading tactics to recruit new drivers