Twist in Uber Class Action: Lyft Says Stop Hunting for Trade Secrets

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In a turn of events in a class action lawsuit brought by a former Uber driver who claims the ride-sharing app lost personal information in a 2014 data breach, Lyft filed a motion with the court alleging that Uber was using discovery in the action to try and steal Lyft’s trade secrets.

According to the motion, Lyft is not a party to the class action lawsuit, but Lyft alleges Uber is targeting the rival company and an unnamed Lyft driver in subpoenas as a part of discovery in the class action.

Lyft alleges that Uber is “using this case, this plaintiff and this court’s subpoena power to conduct its own witch hunt, to distract attention from its long and storied history of data breaches, to harass [the unnamed driver] and to dig into its competitor’s internal, confidential and trade secret information.”

The class action was initiated by an Oregon Uber driver who alleged that Uber failed to protect drivers from a data breach in 2014 and also failed to inform drivers about the breach in order to protect their personal information for over five months. The plaintiff claimed the attack could have been prevented by Uber, but Uber failed to encrypt its drivers’ personal information.

Uber filed a motion to dismiss the class action, claiming no harm had occurred as a result of the breach and U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler agreed with the company. The case was dismissed, but the plaintiffs were given leave to amend and asked for additional extensions on the deadline on their amended complaint.

It is during that time, Lyft alleges, that Uber used the discovery process in the class action to improperly subpoena Lyft and its anonymous driver about its operations, including industry secrets. According to the motion filed by Lyft, “What Uber saw was an opportunity to wrest control of this (dismissed) case, string the plaintiff along for as long as it needed and issue a swath of subpoenas seeking confidential, internal information about its chief competitor.”

According to the motion, Uber has hit Lyft and its employee with a total of 11 subpoenas and demanded an inspection of Lyft’s electronics and Uber related emails. “It is an embarrassing situation for them,” said a representative for Lyft in a statement, “and we aren’t surprised they want to try to unfairly blame a competitor, deflecting their own failings in this situation.”

Lyft is represented by Rachael E. Meny, Jennifer A. Huber, Nicholas D. Marais and Thomas E. Gorman of Keker & Van Nest LLP.

Lead plaintiff Sasha Antman is represented by Robert Ahdoot, Tina Wolfson and Theodore W. Maya of Ahdoot & Wolfson PC.

Uber is represented by Michael Li-Ming Wong, Thad A. Davis, Joshua A. Jessen and Priyanka Rajagopalan of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.

The Uber Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit is Sasha Antman v. Uber Technologies Inc., Case No. 3:15-cv-01175, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.