{"id":89746,"date":"2017-08-18T14:46:07","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T18:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techvibes.com\/?p=89746"},"modified":"2017-08-18T14:49:31","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T18:49:31","slug":"former-uber-ceo-adds-heat-to-benchmark-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/magazine\/former-uber-ceo-adds-heat-to-benchmark-lawsuit","title":{"rendered":"Former Uber CEO Adds Heat to Benchmark Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Uber’s major shareholder Benchmark Capital first\u00a0filed a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against former CEO Travis Kalanick a week ago. They followed up days later with a letter to employees<\/a>\u00a0explaining why the firm was taking legal action to boot Kalanick off the company’s board.<\/p>\n

Now the cofounder\u00a0is finally firing back.<\/p>\n

Last night, Kalanick submitted court filings<\/a> that characterize the lawsuit as a “public and personal attack.”<\/p>\n

Benchmark claims Kalanick\u2014who is still involved in Uber’s day-to-day operations\u2014is\u00a0impeding the company’s search for a new CEO, thereby breaching his contract and fiduciary duty.<\/p>\n

Kalanick\u00a0didn’t like that. He responded with a court filing rejecting the Benchmark suit and\u00a0calling for the dispute to be settled\u00a0through arbitration.<\/p>\n

Among other contentions, the filing details Benchmark’s “ambush” on Kalanick to sign a letter of resignation while\u00a0taking a personal leave of absence. In May, his mother was killed in a boating accident and his father critically injured.\u00a0The\u00a0court document\u00a0says the plan to remove his\u00a0power within the ride-sharing company happened at\u00a0“the most shameful of times.”<\/p>\n

“Not more than a week after having expressed ‘support’ for Kalanick as CEO, and a week and a half after his mother\u2019s funeral, Benchmark sent its principals Peter Fenton and Matt Cohler to Kalanick\u2019s hotel room in Chicago with a demand that he immediately resign as CEO,” the filing reads.<\/p>\n

The filing also notes that Benchmark hasn’t demonstrated a threat of imminent irreparable harm to Uber, as Kalanick doesn’t control a majority of Uber’s board.<\/p>\n

“It is, therefore, hard to imagine\u2014without engaging in rank, impermissible speculation\u2014how Kalanick might distrust “the sound management of uber,'” the filing states.<\/p>\n

Although he\u00a0resigned in June after accusations of sexual harassment, the\u00a0former CEO\u00a0remains on Uber’s board of directors.<\/p>\n

Benchmark’s lawsuit has divided Uber investors as many on the company’s board continue to stand by Kalanick,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Uber’s major shareholder Benchmark Capital first\u00a0filed a lawsuit\u00a0against former CEO Travis Kalanick a week ago. They followed up days later with a letter to employees\u00a0explaining why the firm was taking legal action to boot Kalanick off the company’s board. Now the cofounder\u00a0is finally firing back. Last night, Kalanick submitted court filings that characterize the lawsuit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76241,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1024,798,992,70],"magazine-region":[],"magazine-series":[],"magazine-topic":[],"class_list":["post-89746","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","hentry","category-News","tag-benchmark","tag-ride-sharing","tag-travis-kalanick","tag-uber"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/89746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/76241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/89746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89746"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-region?post=89746"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-series?post=89746"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=89746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}