Guardian and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists began releasing thousands of leaked confidential Uber files, revealing that the company knowingly broke all kinds of lawsit secretly lobbied governments, withheld evidence of its operations from the police, received help from politicians and used violence against its drivers to promote business.

It should be said that the leaked documents cover a five-year period between 2013 and 2017 and cover Uber’s operations in 40 countries when the mobility company was still run by co-founder Travis Kalanick. Some leaked statements from the manager speak for themselves: “Sometimes we have problems because, well, we’re just fucking illegal«.

The documents, which include 83,000 emails and another 1,000 files of conversations between executives, reveal tens of millions “invested” in lobbying and public relations to win the support of world leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron and a former EU commissioner. Neelie Kroes, who took the leak badly.

The overall goal was to disrupt the taxi industry in Europe and bring shared rides to cities around the world, even if they knowingly break existing regulations. Uber’s ruthless business methods were widely known, but for the first time the leaked files provide a unique insider’s view of the efforts it took to achieve its goals.

They show, for example, how former EU digital commissioner Neelie Kroes, Brussels’ top civil servant, negotiated a merger with Uber before the end of her term and after secretly lobbied for the companywhich is a clear violation of the ethical standards of the European Union.

As for Macron, when he was economy minister and while French taxi drivers staged street protests against Uber, he got along very well with Travis Kalanick, promising him to reform laws in favor of the company. Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann described the meeting with Macron as “spectacular”. As he had never seen, “Soon we’ll be dancing,” he added.

“Violence helps”

Another of the revelations of this leak shows that Travis Kalanick he didn’t even care about his own driver in order to promote Uber’s business and show a terrible disregard for the possibility of being injured by taxi drivers, which happened during the protests in France and other countries. She even seemed to welcome him: “I think it’s worth it… Violence warrants [sic] success”he wrote in the text.

“We are not legal in many countries, we must avoid antagonistic statements”is described in another leaked email where a commitment is made to a “active non-compliance” in countries such as Turkey, South Africa, Spain, the Czech Republic, Sweden, France, Germany and Russia. “We have officially become pirates,” the directors described.

The current Uber stands out

In a statement, Uber spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker acknowledged the many mistakes the company made under Kalanick, but that her replacement, Dara Khosrowshahi, “I was tasked with changing every aspect of how Uber works” and there it was “Strict controls and compliance installed” necessary to function as a public company.

«We have not and will not apologize for past behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our current values.. Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we have done in the last five years and what we will do in the next.”assured the spokeswoman.

The company that ushered in the mobility-as-a-service era will have to change a lot. Contrary to Hazelbaker’s claims that Uber has been a reformed company since Kalanick stepped down as CEO in 2017 amid criticism of Uber’s workplace culture, including allegations of sexual harassment, racial profiling and harassment, some critics have not. they believe that he has sufficiently changed some of the terrible previous practices, today confirmed by the leaked documents.