In a report by the New York Times, the FBI and the US Attorney’s office is looking into a claim in which Uber was using a software to gain an unlawful advantage over their competitors. They are looking to see if Uber used any tactics or software to interfere with Lyft, their competitor in the ride-sharing space.
What they are looking for in particular is a program called “Hell” internally where people who know of the matter divulged the information on the condition of anonymity to the authorities. It was said that Uber had used this program to gain the advantage over Lyft in places where both of them operate. This comes as not surprising as another area where the US Justice Department is also investigating claims of another software/program called “Greyball” in which Uber used to detect and avoid local enforcement agents.
The New York Times reported that they reached out to a spokesperson from Uber and that the firm is cooperating with the investigations. Uber appointed a new CEO just last month and this is another issue he has to resolve on top of the other mess created by former CEO, Travis Kalanick. Kalanick has been known to have a less than desirable approach when it comes to laws and regulations as Uber has been skirting them and operating in a lot of grey areas.
This comes as another test for Dara Khosrowshahi as he tackles on Uber’s legal headaches in this first 100 days as CEO.
[Source: New York Times]
