Since its recognizable logo first appeared on our phone screens in 2011, Uber has quickly risen to become ubiquitous in modern-day transportation, overtaking taxis in many cities. The ride-hailing company has cemented its status as a pillar of the sharing economy, while also battling countless lawsuits, protests, and government regulations over the years. The controversies reached a head in June 2017, when co-founder Travis Kalanick stepped down from his position as CEO. Read on for a glimpse into the events that led to Kalanick’s resignation.

Rise to Ride-Sharing Royalty

Uber’s growth as one of the world’s top ride-sharing companies was swift. It easily secured several rounds of funding, and became one of the most valuable startups worldwide. Uber has yet to go public, but is valued at $70 billion.

Uber’s impact on the market is cultural, as well as financial–the term “uberisation” has come to refer to other companies and industries that take after the company’s business model of eliminating the middleman and connecting customers directly to service providers. And, as The Economist writes, the word “uber” has become its own verb, like Facebook or Google.

Though competitors like Lyft have slowly built up steam, Uber still dominates the market. At the end of May, Uber’s U.S. market share was 77 percent, down from 84 percent earlier in the year. This decrease, experts say, is likely the effect of the seemingly endless controversies that have tainted Uber over its lifetime.

Early Disputes

Uber’s efforts to transform the transportation market have been met with resistance from the beginning. In a 2013 class-action lawsuit, a group of drivers sued Uber for its labor practices. The suit claims the drivers have been “misclassified as independent contractors and are entitled to be reimbursed for their expenses that Uber should have to pay, like for gas and vehicle maintenance.” The company agreed to settle the suit for $100 million in 2016, but a federal judge denied the settlement and the case is still ongoing.

In the U.S. and worldwide, Uber has faced major scrutiny for operating in markets without adhering to local policies and procedures that regulate cabs. In 2014, several protests against the company broke out across Europe. These protests came to a head in 2015, when taxi drivers locked down the city of Paris, blocking roads, burning tires, and attacking drivers. The drivers considered Uber to be a form of “economic terrorism.”

“London Anti-Uber Taxi Protest” Courtesy David Holt : License (CC BY 2.0)

Uber is currently banned in Italy, Hungary, Denmark, and several other nations, in addition to some U.S. cities. In August 2016, Uber sold its presence in China to competitor Didi Chuxing, freeing it up to expand in other global markets. Today, the company operates in over 80 countries.

Over the years, Uber has come under fire for funneling millions into opposition research, both in plots to push out Lyft, its primary U.S. competitor, and to fight negative press coverage by “digging up dirt” on journalists. While these scandals have tarnished Uber’s image, 2017 has been an especially turbulent year for the company.

2017: A Year of Controversy

Uber’s controversies seemed to pile up at the beginning of 2017. When President Donald Trump’s travel ban was announced in January, protesters gathered at airports nationwide. While the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance ceased operations at JFK to participate in the protest, Uber continued picking up customers, fueling backlash from many who said the company was profiting from Islamophobia and deportation. The company later apologized, but not before the hashtag “#DeleteUber” began trending and rival company Lyft announced its support for the protesters, promising to donate $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Toxic Culture

In February, Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post documenting several incidents of sexual harassment during her time with the company. The post went viral and prompted Kalanick to hire former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the claims. In June, Holder presented the board with a report of the findings and series of recommendations to improve Uber’s workplace. One of the recommendations was to strip Kalanick of some of his power. Also in June, Uber fired 20 employees after an investigation unrelated to Holder’s revealed more evidence of bullying, harassment, and a “toxic” company culture.

Skirting the Rules

A few days after Fowler’s viral post was published, Uber was hit with a lawsuit from Waymo, a self-driving car offshoot of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Waymo alleged that Uber stole trade and patent secrets, focusing on actions by Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer. Levandowski was fired from Uber in May, and a new filing in June revealed that Kalanick knew Levandowksi had possession of data from Google long before the Waymo suit was filed.

In March, The New York Times reported on Uber’s use of a technology called Greyball, which it employed primarily outside of the U.S., allowing drivers to evade local authorities in markets where the ride-hailing service had been banned. The Department of Justice launched an investigation in response.

“Travis Kalanick” Courtesy of TechCrunch : Licence (CC BY 2.0)

Kalanick’s Tarnished Image

Kalanick, as an individual, faced even more scrutiny in late February after he was caught on video in a profanity-laden argument with an Uber driver over the company’s falling fares, which the driver said made him “bankrupt.” After the video surfaced online, Kalanick publicly apologized.

“To say that I am ashamed is an extreme understatement,” Kalanick wrote in a company-wide email. “I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up. This is the first time I’ve been willing to admit that I need leadership help and I intend to get it.”

Several years ago, Kalanick also came under fire for referring to his company as “Boob-er” in an highly-scrutinized GQ interview, saying that his desirability among women has increased since starting Uber.

Kalanick Resigns

A week before officially resigning, Kalanick announced an indefinite leave of absence from Uber leadership. This was in response to Holder’s recommendation that the company re-evaluate some of Kalanick’s responsibilities or distribute them among other members of leadership. In a memo to employees, Kalanick also said the leave of absence would give him time to grieve for his mother, who was killed in a boating accident weeks earlier.

Breaking: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick memo to employees on his leave of absence. Full text. @NPR pic.twitter.com/tCE4bZ2C0u

— Aarti Shahani (@aarti411) June 13, 2017

The temporary departure did not satisfy Uber’s investors, however. On June 20, two venture capitalists presented Kalanick with a list of demands, including his resignation. The letter was from five of Uber’s major investors, including Benchmark and the mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments. By the end of the day, his departure was made public.

Kalanick’s resignation isn’t the first indication of instability among the company’s top brass. Including the position of CEO, three of Uber’s eight leadership positions are currently vacant. Several other high-level positions and other leaders are also currently under scrutiny, and four out of seven board members, including the board’s only two women, are relatively new to the company.

What’s Next for Uber?

In spite of the recent controversies, Uber is continuing to expand and reshape its image. Uber added an in-app tipping function in June, much to the delight of drivers and customers, and the company’s self-driving projects are continuing to improve, even in the wake of the Waymo lawsuit. The company also streamlined its app to allow users to hail rides for others more easily, letting users call an Uber for a drunk friend or aging relative.

Unfortunately, the scandals haven’t stopped altogether. Less than 10 days after Kalanick’s resignation, civil rights activists filed suit against Uber in federal court for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act and the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act by not accommodating passengers with non-collapsible wheelchairs.

Conclusion

Even with the departure of Kalanick, the rest of this year could be make or break for Uber. Kalanick still retains a seat on Uber’s board, as well as voting rights in company decisions. Some think he could be leaving the door open to return to the helm in the future. Murmurs of Uber going public are also ongoing. Uber’s market share decrease and 2016 earnings loss could still hold up an IPO, but economists and experts think Kalanick’s resignation is a good sign for the company’s public trading potential. All eyes will remain on Uber to see if the ride-sharing giant can continue to grow, while transforming its leadership and company culture.

Avery Anapol

Avery Anapol is a blogger and freelancer for Law Street Media. She holds a BA in journalism and mass communication from the George Washington University. When she’s not writing, Avery enjoys traveling, reading fiction, cooking, and waking up early. Contact Avery at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Uber in Turmoil: How Several Scandals Led to the Departure of its CEO appeared first on Law Street.

Self-driving cars might soon become a common part of our lives–TechCrunch recently reported a study predicting that 25 percent of driving could be done by autonomous vehicles by the year 2030.

But the new technology is far from perfect, and has recently caused a number of incidents. In late March, a Tesla in autopilot mode hit a police motorcycle in Arizona, although the officer was able to jump off of the motorcycle before he was injured. And a self-driving Volvo being used by Uber ended up in another crash in Arizona around the same time. Over the summer, a Tesla driver died in a crash while the car was on autopilot (the driver was watching a Harry Potter movie at the time).  In September, one of Google’s self-driving vehicles ran a red light and collided with the passenger’s side of another vehicle.

So, when there isn’t a human steering the wheel, who takes the fall in court for accidents like these? Many lawyers and legal experts who have weighed in on the issue believe that the automobile manufacturers should be held liable.

However, not every case involving self-driving car crashes is the same. Recently, Michael I. Krauss, a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, explored how different types of accidents and malfunctions for different types of vehicles should be handled under tort law in a piece for Forbes Magazine. Tort law involves civil cases in which one party has faced injury or damages and another party has been accused of being responsible for them.

According to Krauss, if an accident occurs because of a “manufacturing defect”–meaning the car does not operate as it was designed to operate–then the company that built it should be at fault. If there was an “informational defect”–meaning the car’s owner was not properly educated about how to operate it, and used it incorrectly as a result–then, Krauss writes, the car company should be liable only if it was negligent and failed to give sufficient instructions or warnings.

However, Krauss notes that “design defects” create a legal gray area. A design defect would occur if the choices the car has been programmed to lead the driver into an accident in response to an unforeseen issue. For example, Krauss says that if a moose jumps in front of the car, it could choose to hit the moose and potentially kill the driver or swerve onto the sidewalk and endanger pedestrians. He argues that decisions about liability in these scenarios should once again be based on whether or not the manufacturers were negligent or whether they made the best possible design choice. Such decisions could be left up to juries or decided beforehand by regulators, based on what a reasonable person might conclude, Krauss writes.

The Society of Auto Engineers has established six levels of driving automation, with level zero indicating that the driver has full control and level five indicating that the car is completely autonomous. Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, told USA Today that a human driver is responsible for any crashes involving a vehicle ranked lower than level three. Smith added that because most accidents are caused by human error, which automatic vehicles aim to eliminate, a growing reliance on self-driving cars could mean fewer accidents and thus fewer legal disputes.

But the technology isn’t perfect, and can still make the same mistakes as humans–like speeding or running through red lights. Questions about who would take the blame for these violations remain unanswered.

Government regulation of self-driving cars could be changing under President Donald Trump’s White House. In September, former President Barack Obama’s administration released a set of standards for self-driving car manufacturers that would require them to conduct extensive safety assessments and provide the results to the federal government. Because legislation that addresses the vehicles varies for each state, the Department of Transportation released a centralized list of guidelines each state could adopt. But Elaine Chao, the new transportation secretary in Trump’s Administration, is now reevaluating the old administration’s rules as companies that develop the vehicles like Google and Uber push back against the amount of information they would have to report. Chao has cited safety and jobs–because the technology would eliminate the need for occupations like truck drivers–as her main concerns as she considers the issue.

Victoria Sheridan

Victoria is an editorial intern at Law Street. She is a senior journalism major and French minor at George Washington University. She’s also an editor at GW’s student newspaper, The Hatchet. In her free time, she is either traveling or planning her next trip abroad. Contact Victoria at VSheridan@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Who is Liable When a Self-Driving Car Gets into an Accident? appeared first on Law Street.

Two of the trendiest topics in tech and innovation–Uber and self-driving cars–are set to combine in Pittsburgh. Uber is aiming to place 100 self-driving cars in the city for use by Uber customers, although it’s important to note that for right now, the driverless cars will contain drivers who are prepared to take over in case that anything goes wrong, as well as co-pilots who will monitor and observe the car. While driverless cars have been talked about for a few years at this point, the company’s giant leap into actually offering self-driving Ubers to its customers–even at a test level–is a major step.

Uber has been working with about 50 researchers and engineers from Carnegie Mellon University’s robotics department to develop the system, and while it’s being tested out, Uber self-driving car rides will be free. The plan is that even when Uber begins to charge for the trips, they’ll still be cheaper than traditional rideshare prices. Additionally, rather than make its own self-driving cars, Uber is just attaching driverless capabilities to regular cars–specifically “100 modified Volvo XC90s outfitted with self-driving equipment.”

According to Bloomberg News, the set up will be:

For now, Uber’s test cars travel with safety drivers, as common sense and the law dictate. These professionally trained engineers sit with their fingertips on the wheel, ready to take control if the car encounters an unexpected obstacle. A co-pilot, in the front passenger seat, takes notes on a laptop, and everything that happens is recorded by cameras inside and outside the car so that any glitches can be ironed out. Each car is also equipped with a tablet computer in the back seat, designed to tell riders that they’re in an autonomous car and to explain what’s happening.

This is obviously still a work in progress in many ways. There are a lot of hurdles to get over before driverless cars actually become a realistic form of transportation–including legal concerns, as only a few states have authorized self-driving cars. But Uber’s taking a gutsy step, and next time you’re in Pittsburgh, you may end up in an Uber that’s a preview of the future of ridesharing.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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