[florean]

Judge Alsup got the letter because the US Attorney's office passed it along to him. I haven't seen anything about how the US Attorney obtained it, but presumably criminal prosecution and subpoenas provide a greater disincentive to lying than civil suits. Also, there were two parties who would have had this letter: Uber and the lawyer(s) who wrote the letter on behalf of the former Uber employee. Unlike Uber, those attorneys would have little incentive to be anything but transparent.

[florean]

Oh, now we know how the USA got it: https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935912822478794752. Uber "voluntarily disclosed the Jacobs letter" because Jacobs threatened to involuntarily disclose it. However, Uber tried to hide it in this case (despite it/Jacobs mentioning Waymo); the USA gave it to Judge Alsup because he had initially recommended the case for criminal investigation and they thought he might find it relevant in his trial. At this point, Uber has lied so consistently it seems like they should forfeit their opportunity to offer testimony. I wonder if the judge will allow any of this to be brought up with the jury.

[florean]

Only in @kateconger's replies[0], but it appears Alsup is still deciding whether he'll allow the Jacobs letter to be admitted as evidence for the jury. Excluding a letter alleging Uber stole Waymo trade secrets would be a big blow to Waymo. Especially one that Uber paid $7.5m to suppress. There isn't going to be a smoking gun, so Waymo has to make the case that Uber probably stole Waymo trade secrets because they've acted like they probably did.

[0]: https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935971693192818688

[florean]

I was joking about Alsup allowing Uber's pretrial malfeasance to be disclosed to the jury. But the quotes in this Ars Technica article[0] make me wonder. "My normal inclination is, let’s decide the case on the merits but I’ve never seen a case where there are so many bad things like Uber has done." "It looks like you covered [the Jacobs letter] up, refused to turn it over to the lawyers that were most involved in the case, [and] to me, for reasons that are inexplicable." It sounds like Alsup is split on the Jacobs letter because he might be a "disgruntled employee who sees the handwriting on the wall". And he really wanted to know why Jacobs' lawyer got $3m for writing a letter. Alsup knows something doesn't smell right about the Jacobs settlement. If it is allowed...

[0]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/waymo-asks-ubers...