18 month prison sentence handed to former Google engineer who was at the centre of Uber lawsuit

Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who was at the centre of a huge lawsuit between autonomous driving companies Waymo and Uber, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Levandowski switched employment from Google’s Waymo division to Uber Technologies Inc, as the two firms battled for autonomous car supremacy.

But the real controversy came when Levandowski was accused of “theft of autonomous technology trade secrets”, which caused outrage and sparked a mammoth legal battle between the two companies.

Levondowski was ejected from Uber and forced into bankruptcy by a $179 million award against him.

During court proceedings, which saw the 18 month prison sentence (to be served after the coronavirus pandemic) handed to him, Levandowski also agreed to pay $756,499.22 in restitution to Waymo and a fine of $95,000.

You may be wondering how on earth a man who will be serving time in prison and is bankrupt will pay such huge figures, but Levandowski appears to have one last card up his sleeve.

Filings seen by TaxiPoint, and first published by TechCrunch, show that Levandowski is coming after Uber and Waymo for a sum that could be in the billions.

This new lawsuit, which was filed as part of Levandowski’s bankruptcy proceedings, mostly focuses on Uber’s agreement to indemnify Levandowski against legal action when it bought his self-trucking company, Otto Trucking.

If Levandowski is victorious in this latest legal challenge, he could net funds upwards of $4 billion from Uber.