The last-minute evidence quickly mounted. A letter and an email full of damning claims. Apps that sent self-destructing messages. A payment of $4.5 million to an employee who threatened to be a whistle-blower — and an additional $3 million to his lawyer.
.. On Wednesday, Judge Alsup continued to upbraid Uber’s lawyers for not being more forthcoming with evidence. “I have never seen a case where there were so many bad things done like Uber has done in this case,” he said.
.. The letter that caused the trial to be delayed was written by a lawyer for Richard Jacobs, a former employee in Uber’s security team, to Angela Padilla, the company’s deputy general counsel. Thirty-seven pages long, it detailed a list of questionable behavior at Uber, including spying on competitors and using special laptop computers and self-destructing messaging apps that would hide communications.
.. On Wednesday, Ms. Padilla testified that the letter, which has not been made public in its entirety, was “clearly extortionist” and filled with “fantastical” information.
.. Mr. Jacobs responded, Ms. Padilla said, by sending an email to Travis Kalanick, the company’s chief executive at the time, and others complaining of criminal and unethical behavior inside Uber.
That email to Mr. Kalanick also didn’t surface in the long evidence discovery process between Waymo and Uber lawyers, and was presented in court for the first time on Wednesday.
.. Judge Alsup said to Ms. Padilla that “on the surface, it looks like you covered this up” and tried to keep the letter out of the hands of Waymo’s lawyers.
.. The company did share the letter from Mr. Jacobs’s lawyer with three different United States attorney offices, because Mr. Jacobs had threatened to take his claims to federal prosecutors and Uber wanted to “take the air out of his extortionist balloon,” Ms. Padilla testified.
.. Judge Alsup questioned why Uber would pay so much to an employee making bogus claims. “To someone like me, an ordinary mortal, and to ordinary mortals out there in the audience — people don’t pay that kind of money for B.S.,” the judge said... A Waymo spokesman, Johnny Luu, said in a statement: “Today’s revelations fit Uber’s pattern of destroying and withholding reams of evidence relevant to our trade secrets case, and that those at the very top of Uber were aware of these inexcusable practices. We look forward to the additional discovery granted by the court and to presenting our case in front of a jury at trial.”
How two decisions in Washington could turn AT&T into a uniquely powerful company
The future of AT&T could be shaped by two big decisions in Washington this week, with the Justice Department suing the telecom giant on Monday to block its $85 billion purchase of Time Warner and the Federal Communications Commission announcing a plan Tuesday to roll back net neutrality rules, handing a big win to Internet providers.
.. If it wins its antitrust case against the DOJ, AT&T could buy Time Warner without offering any concessions to the government. It could then benefit from the repeal of the government’s net neutrality rules, allowing it to leverage Time Warner’s massive library of shows, television stations and films like few other companies.
- Some, such as May, argued that the loosened regulations would allow AT&T to market Time Warner’s content in new and different ways that could theoretically help Americans.
- Others argue that the combination of a bigger AT&T with a more relaxed regulatory environment could simply increase the firm’s incentives to harm competitors in the marketplace.
.. “One can’t imagine that there are any broadband providers who would be eager to test the limits of what is now allowable under this regulatory regime, given the enormous risk of popular and/or regulatory or legislative backlash,” said Moffett.
.. the combined company could use its newfound control over HBO, CNN and TNT
.. AT&T’s chief executive Randall Stephenson has said that the goal of purchasing Time Warner is to build an advertising behemoth that can compete with Google and Facebook.
.. “The problem from the point of view of DOJ is that if the deal is approved, it will be very hard to police any commitment
.. “The record of such commitments is very poor. The companies do whatever they want. And that’s well understood by everybody.”
How Corporations and the Wealthy Avoid Taxes (and How to Stop Them)
The United States loses, according to my estimates, close to $70 billion a year in tax revenue due to the shifting of corporate profits to tax havens. That’s close to 20 percent of the corporate tax revenue that is collected each year. This is legal.
Meanwhile, an estimated $8.7 trillion, 11.5 percent of the entire world’s G.D.P., is held offshore by ultrawealthy households in a handful of tax shelters, and most of it isn’t being reported to the relevant tax authorities. This is… not so legal.
.. In 2015, $15.5 billion in profits made their way to Google Ireland Holdings in Bermuda even though Google employs only a handful of people there... 63 percent of all the profits made outside of the United States by American multinationals are now reported in six low- or zero-tax countries:
- the Netherlands,
- Bermuda,
- Luxembourg,
- Ireland,
- Singapore and
- Switzerland.
.. After learning Irish authorities were going to close loopholes it had used, Apple asked a Bermuda-based law firm, Appleby, to design a similar tax shelter on the English Channel island of JerseyAppleby duly obliged, and Jersey became the new home of the (previously Irish) companies Apple Sales International and Apple Operations International... In 2015, the Swiss Leaks revealed the owners of bank accounts at HSBC Switzerland, and in 2016 the Panama Papers revealed those of the shell companies created by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. These showed that 50 percent of the wealth held in tax havens belongs to households with more than $50 million in net wealth.. In the Paradise Papers, we see that these are not only Russian oligarchs or Belgian dentists who use tax havens, but rich Americans too... For a long time, the bulk of it was held in Switzerland, but a fast-growing fraction is now in Hong Kong, Singapore and other emerging havens.The most compelling way to do this would be to create comprehensive registries recording the true individual owners of real estate and financial securities, including equities, bonds and mutual fund shares... One common objection to financial registries is that they would impinge on privacy. Yet countries have maintained property records for land and real estate for decades... comprehensive registries would make it possible to not only reduce tax evasion, but also curb money laundering, monitor international capital flows, fight the financing of terrorism and better measure inequality.
How mobile is reshaping the B2B landscape for growth
There’s a new generation of B2B buyers out there. In the past, companies relied on personal relationships to build their brand. Whether it was in-person, at industry events, or over the phone, the human element between business and customer played a pivotal role in business growth. But digital changed that dynamic.
B2B customers today do not expect to interact with a salesperson until it’s time to close the deal. More importantly, they expect the same digital experiences and features that they encounter as consumers, and hold brands accountable to frictionless mobile experiences regardless of their industry.
.. B2B mobile leaders are generating higher levels of mobile engagement as measured by search queries, site traffic, lead generation, and actual transactions. They’re also seeing a greater share of revenue that is mobile driven or influenced.