“He tried to rape my girlfriend (…), he stopped in an alley, started touching her and tried to force her to jerk him off. » 1er February 2015, Uber was alerted to a possible sexual assault committed by one of its “partner drivers” in Paris. In the midst of legal and media turmoil in France and more broadly in Europe, the multinational seems very embarrassed by this report which comes at the worst time, according to the internal exchanges to which The world had access as part of the “Uber Files” investigation.
“Uber Files”, an international investigation
“Uber Files” is an investigation based on thousands of internal Uber documents sent by an anonymous source to the British daily The Guardianand forwarded to International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and 42 media partners, including The world.
Emails, presentations, meeting minutes… These 124,000 documents, dated from 2013 to 2017, offer a rare dive into the mysteries of a start-up which was then seeking to establish itself in cities around the world despite a regulatory context. unfavorable. They detail how Uber has used, in France as elsewhere, all the tricks of lobbying to try to change the law to its advantage.
The “Uber Files” also reveal how the Californian group, determined to impose itself by a fait accompli and, if necessary, by operating illegally, has implemented practices deliberately playing with the limits of the law, or which may amount to judicial obstruction of the investigations of which he was the subject.
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The first employee of the company to study the file immediately notifies his superiors. He explains that he spoke on the telephone with the ” boyfriend “ of the alleged victim, holder of the Uber account used to order the ride, as well as with the person concerned. He adds that no complaint has been filed at this stage. As for the driver, he is an individual who used the UberPop service to make ends meet. His account is immediately suspended because ” there is [déjà] had a problem with him two months ago”.
Less than an hour later, Thibaud Simphal, who then headed the French branch of the company, reacted: “It’s obviously tricky to encourage them to file a complaint until we have made regulatory progress to [Uber]Pop. » In this month of February 2015, indeed, the service of private drivers is in the hot seat in France. Uber knows it is illegal, but that does not prevent it from continuing to develop it.
“I thought I was going to die”
If the leaders of Uber intend to defy the law and do their best to avoid lawsuits, the illegality of UberPop is not without impact on the course of the races. At this time, many UberPop drivers ask their customers to get in the front of their vehicle so as not to appear suspicious in the face of possible police checks.
This was the case during the incriminated trip, on the night of January 31 to 1er February 2015, according to the account given today at the World the presumed victim of this attempted rape, L., who wishes to remain anonymous. “I was just 18 years old and I was coming home from a party. During the ride the driver was very strange and I didn’t dare look at him too much”, she recalls. Instead of dropping off the young woman at her destination, the driver then stopped in a deserted street:
“He tilted my seat and asked me for a massage. I refused and when I tried to get out he locked the door. Afterwards he started trying to touch me, saying obscene things to me and trying to get on top of me. I thought I was going to die. »
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