[Text/Observer Network Li Li] The American taxi company Uber is now worth US$43 billion, and about 19 million people travel through the platform every day. However, a recently leaked "Uber Files" involving French President Macron and many other leaders has stirred up public opinion.
The document disclosed that Uber attempted to lobby and recruit politicians to help it rewrite laws to pave its own way and "disrupt the taxi industry" during its global expansion from 2013 to 2017. The documents detail much of the help Uber received from top officials such as Macron and former EU commissioner Cruz. In order to prevent police raids and investigations, Uber's former boss personally ordered the use of a technology called a "kill switch" to cut off outside access to Uber's servers and hinder law enforcement officials' investigations.
These documents also revealed for the first time that Uber planned to spend $90 million on lobbying and public relations in 2016.
In response to the content disclosed in the document, an Uber spokesperson admitted that the company's "past actions are not consistent with current values", but the spokesperson claimed that Uber now has a "new look" and is different from the past.
BBC Screenshot of the report, on the left is Neelie Kroes, the former vice-president of the European Commission , and on the right is French President Macron
Document exposed: Macron once claimed that he had reached a "secret deal" with the French cabinet
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), " The Guardian " and other media reported on July 10 that this document is based on more than 124,000 records shared by the "Guardian" and the non-profit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, involving emails, text messages and social media calls between Uber's top leadership. The time span is from 2013 to 2017.
covers a period when Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick was president. At the time, Uber was looking to expand into major cities such as Paris.
Leaked documents confirmed that French President Macron had spared no effort to secretly help Uber when he was previously the French Minister of Economy.
In October 2010, Uber officially launched the first version of the App in San Francisco, USA. In December 2011, Paris, France, became the first city where Uber launched outside the United States. Uber heavily subsidized "taxi-hailing" and used an "unsustainable" incentive model and extremely low pricing to attract drivers and passengers to use the application. This was met with strong resistance from the French taxi industry and triggered violent street protests.
In August 2014, Macron was appointed Minister of Economy at the time. Although the French taxi industry protests Uber's operating model, Macron still regards Uber as a source of economic growth, and he is very concerned about the fact that "Uber can provide more new jobs." The
document states that Macron was particularly "keen" to help Uber at the time, even telling the company that he had struck a secret "deal" with the French cabinet.
In October 2014, Macron held a meeting with Uber founder Travis Kalanick and other executives and "lobbyists." The Guardian stated that the meeting marked Macron’s official support for the controversial company and became the “defender of Uber’s interests” in the French government.
According to a report by French "Le Monde" on July 10, Uber's "lobbyist" Mark MacGann described the meeting as "I have never seen such a spectacular sight."
"Meeted with Macron this morning, after all France loves us", McGann wrote in a brief report: "While there is still a lot of work to do, we will soon be dancing (celebrating)". The
report pointed out that this meeting remains confidential and has never been made public in Macron’s work agenda. The
document also disclosed that after the meeting, the relationship between Macron and Kalanick quickly heated up, and the two called each other by their first names. Later, the two met at least four times at the World Economic Forum meetings in Paris and Davos, Switzerland. Except for the meeting between the two at the Davos Forum, which was public, the rest of the public was unaware of it.
In 2014, Uber launched "UberPop" globally. This service allows people who do not hold a professional taxi driver's license to pick up passengers in private cars. Although this service is cheap and expands rapidly, it has also caused controversy in terms of safety and law.
Usually applying for a vehicle operation license in France requires the driver to attend 250 hours of training and pay a deposit of 1,500 euros. There is still a queue to apply, and the waiting time may take half a year. Therefore, UberPop has aroused the anger of the French taxi industry, which has repeatedly launched strikes against UberPop.
On June 25, 2015, protests against UberPop turned violent. The picture comes from the BBC
document saying that the courts and parliament banned this service, but Uber is still running. Although Macron also believes that UberPop has no "future", he has agreed to cooperate with Uber to modify French laws governing Uber's other services.
An email between Kalanick and Macron mentioned that Macron had reached a secret "deal" with the French cabinet. Uber will provide an outline of a regulatory framework for ride-sharing and develop a workable proposal.
On June 25, 2015, a protest by French taxi drivers turned violent. A week later, Macron texted Kalanick, "(I) will gather everyone next week to prepare to change the law." On the same day, Uber announced the suspension of UberPop's business in France. Public reports show that Uber said at the time that it made the decision due to the escalation of taxi violence in Paris, France in recent weeks, to stabilize the overall situation and to consider the safety of Uber passengers and driver partners.
However, the leaked documents pointed out that a few months after UberPop was suspended, Macron signed a decree relaxing the requirements for Uber driver licenses. This move once again angered the taxi driver.
In this regard, Uber has also expressed gratitude to Macron: "The level of openness and welcome we have received is unusual in any political and business relationship."
Regarding the relationship between Uber and Macron, a spokesman for the French President's Office said on July 10: "His responsibilities require him to meet and communicate with the heads of many companies. In those years, companies in the service industry have undergone tremendous changes, and these changes must promote their (development) by lifting administrative and regulatory barriers."
BBC was surprised to say that the improper relationship between the current French president and Uber has not been revealed until now.
"Guardian" report screenshot
lobbied Biden , Scholz ...
According to the "Guardian" report, the documents also show that in private, Uber executives expressed undisguised contempt for other officials who were less accepting of Uber's business model.
reported that when (German Chancellor) Scholz was the mayor of Hamburg , he criticized Uber’s lobbyists and insisted on providing a minimum wage guarantee to German taxi drivers. In this regard, leaked documents stated that an Uber executive commented to colleagues that Scholz was a "real comedian."
And when then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who was an Uber supporter at the time, was late for a meeting with Uber executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kalanick texted a colleague: "I've had my people notify him that every minute he's late, it's one less minute he gets to spend with me."
The Guardian said that after meeting with Kalanick, Biden seemed to have modified his prepared speech in Davos, in which he mentioned a CEO whose company would allow millions of workers to "work as long as they want and manage their lives as they please."
In addition to meeting Biden in Davos, Uber executives also met with Netanyahu, then Prime Minister of Israel, and George Osborne, then British Chancellor of the Exchequer. Minutes of the meeting also described Osborne as a "staunch advocate."
reported that Osborne said in a statement that the British government's policies at the time supported him in meeting with the heads of technology companies around the world and "persuading them to invest in the UK and create jobs." However, controversially, the document stated that six British Conservative cabinet ministers held "secret" meetings with Uber.
The Guardian believes that the documents reveal that Uber is good at finding unofficial channels to meet privately with politicians through friends or middlemen. The
document revealed that Uber had provided Uber's shares to "powerful people" in Russia, Italy, Germany and other places, turning them into "strategic investors." Uber has also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to prominent academics to conduct research that supports the company's economic model.
However, reports say that Uber’s efforts have only achieved “mixed” results. In some places, Uber will find itself constrained by the entrenched taxi industry and outperformed by local taxi industry competitors. In January 2016, Uber's attempt to disrupt the European ride-hailing service sparked angry protests from taxi drivers in Belgium, Spain, Italy and France.
According to documents, during the riots in Paris, Kalanick ordered French executives to "retaliate" and encouraged Uber drivers to also launch large-scale protests. A former Uber executive told the Guardian that Uber was "weaponizing" drivers and using violence against them to "keep the controversy going" and get governments to back down.
Privately, Uber executives and employees seem to know that the way they operate is rogue. In the disclosed internal emails, staff mentioned Uber’s “illegal presence” or other forms of non-compliance with regulations in countries such as Turkey, South Africa, Spain, the Czech Republic, Sweden, France, Germany and Russia.
"We are illegal in many countries and we should avoid making hostile comments," one executive wrote in an email. Another executive put it bluntly: "We have officially become 'pirates.'"
In a message to a colleague in 2014, when Uber was shutting down operations in Thailand and India, Nairi Hourdajian, Uber's head of global communications, was even more blunt: "Sometimes we have problems because, well, we're just illegal." Hourdajian declined to comment when contacted by the Guardian.
Uber had planned to spend $90 million in 2016 on lobbying and public relations in an effort to quell backlash against the company and win local governments changes to taxi and labor laws, a document showed.
reported that Kalanick's spokesperson questioned the authenticity of the document, saying that Kalanick "never recommended that Uber engage in violent behavior at the expense of driver safety" and that any statement that he recommended that drivers participate in such activities is "wrong."
(Left to right) Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Neely Cross visit Silicon Valley in 2016. Picture from BBC
European Union - Regulators turned Uber "lobbyists"
These documents also reveal Uber's close relationship with Neelie Kroes, the former Vice President of the European Commission. The
document stated that in October 2014, the Dutch Ministry of Transport required UberPop registered drivers to stop operating unlicensed taxis. In December of the same year, a Dutch court explicitly banned UberPop services, otherwise it would impose a fine of up to 100,000 euros on Uber. In March 2015, Uber’s offices in Amsterdam were raided by Dutch police. The
document said emails showed Cruise calling Dutch officials during the police raid to persuade them to back down. During another raid a week later, Cruise again "harassed" Dutch officials. An email from
in October 2015 said: "We will conduct 'reverse communication' with Cruise and the director of the Prime Minister's Office to get the maximum benefit for Uber through 'concessions.'" The document revealed that Cruise was delivering information to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on behalf of Uber.
Cruz's behavior was also criticized as violating the European Commission's code of conduct. According to EU regulations, members of the European Commission must comply with an "18-month cooling-off period" after leaving office. During this period, new members must be approved by the European Commission.
But documents show that she had discussed with Uber about joining Uber’s advisory committee before her term in the EU ended in November 2014.According to the
report, as a member of the European Commission, Cruz is responsible for overseeing the digital market order and "EU competition law", and is the regulator of large technology companies. Cruise played a leading role in the massive fines against microsoft and intel . On May 13, 2009, the European Commission stated that Intel Corporation violated EU competition law, and the EU decided to impose a fine of US$1.44 billion on Intel Corporation. In 2008, Microsoft was fined 899 million euros by the European Union for violating the antitrust law .
The Guardian stated that after Cruise left office, many companies invited her to join, but she chose the controversial Uber. She wrote to the European Commission's ad hoc ethics committee and asked Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to allow her to join Uber's advisory board within 18 months. But the request was denied, and Cruise ultimately continued to help Uber on an "informal" basis until her 18-month "cooling off" period ended, documents show.
An internal Uber email also advised the employee not to discuss her "informal relationship" with the company externally for fear of affecting her reputation and Uber's ability to negotiate to resolve issues in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
As Cruise's relationship with Uber was revealed, Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at HEC Paris, said: "It makes me think that our system needs to be improved, because this situation should have been prevented."
The Guardian reported that Cruise denied that she held any "formal or informal role" at Uber before the "cooling period" expired in May 2016. She said that as EU commissioner, her interactions with many technology companies were in the public interest. During the "cooling period", the Dutch government appointed her as a special envoy for start-ups, which involves the interaction of "business, government and non-governmental organizations " with the purpose of promoting "friendly relations" between the government and businesses to facilitate investment.
However, a spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs pointed out that "Uber was not classified as a 'start-up' in 2015."
In response to this, Uber responded that Cruise left the Uber advisory board in 2018. The company has since introduced new guidelines to step up oversight of "lobbying in Europe and external contacts with officials."
Screenshot of the Guardian report
Uber was exposed to using a “kill switch” to circumvent data review
The Guardian stated that around the world, police, transportation officials and regulatory agencies are trying to ban Uber. In some cities, officials downloaded the app so they could crack down on Uber taxis without professional taxi driver licenses, fining Uber drivers and impounding their cars. Uber's offices in dozens of countries have been raided by local governments many times.
In this context, Uber developed a technology called a "kill switch" to thwart law enforcement. When Uber's offices were raided, the company's executives frantically issued instructions to IT staff to cut off access to the company's main data systems to prevent law enforcement officials from gathering evidence. Leaked documents from
show that the technology, signed by Uber lawyers, was used at least 12 times in raids in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, India, Hungary and Romania. During a police raid at Uber's Amsterdam office, Uber founder Kalanick personally issued an order: "Please press the 'kill switch' as soon as possible... Access must be closed in Amsterdam."
Kalanick's spokesman said that this "kill switch" agreement is a common business practice and is not intended to obstruct justice. She said the agreements, which did not delete the data, had been reviewed by Uber's legal department and approved by regulators. Kalanick has never been charged with obstruction of justice or related crimes.
A spokesman for Uber said that in 2017, when Dara Khosrowshahi "took over" Kalanick as the new CEO of Uber, the "kill switch" was discontinued. The spokesman said "kill switches" should not be used to thwart legitimate regulatory action.
Gore-Coty, an Uber executive involved in the "kill switch" program, said in a statement that he regretted the use of the "kill switch." Looking back, he said: "I was young, inexperienced and often followed instructions from superiors with questionable ethics."
"The Guardian" said that in a written statement, Uber admitted that it had made "mistakes" in the past, and said that CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who took office in 2017, was tasked with changing all aspects of Uber's operations... "When we say Uber is no longer the company it used to be, what we mean is: 90% of Uber's current employees joined after Dara Khosrowshahi became CEO."
A spokesperson for Uber said that "ridesharing regulations do not exist anywhere in the world" and that traffic laws are outdated for the smartphone age.
