Ex-Uber employee: We stole from other companies and hid it

Uber's bad 2017 just got even worse.

A former Uber employee alleged in court on Tuesday that the company had operated a special team that was tasked with finding—or maybe stealing—trade secrets from other companies.

The team, called "Marketplace Analytics," helped Uber find people and resources that could help it gain a competitive advantage over other companies, according to Rick Jacobs, a former Uber employee who revealed the existence of the team during testimony in the ongoing lawsuit between Google's parent company Alphabet and Uber over self-driving car technology.

San Francisco District Judge William Alsup postponed the trial in order to examine new evidence: a letter which he said was withheld by Uber's lawyers. That letter was written by the lawyer of Jacobs, and contains even more explosive allegations, according to reporters who were on the scene.

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The allegations add to an already large amount of evidence about Uber's shady and often illegal practices as it worked to establish a dominant position in the emerging ride-hailing market. Uber has similarly been accused of using secret software to trick regulators, different software to spy on Lyft drivers, and even have employees book fake rides to ruin the efficiency of competitive services.

All this is on top of Uber's operator license being pulled from London, share devaluation by SoftBank, and a massive data hack and cover up that could lead to even more lawsuits.

Uber's "Marketplace Analytics" team was successful in getting information like important code used by other companies and driver information, Jacobs reportedly said.

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In addition to the efforts to find and acquire other companies' information, Uber also allegedly pushed employees to use secure forms of communication in case the company's actions were ever revealed, including computer servers separate from the company's main systems, according to Forbes reporter Biz Carson.

There was some confusion, however, as Jacobs disagreed with certain parts of his lawyer's letter—in particular that Uber's program ever broke the law. The letter has not yet been made public. Jacobs is not currently with the company, but it is still paying him.

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Ed Russo, a current Uber employee, reportedly took the stand and denied many of the allegations made in the letter and Jacobs' testimony.

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The revelations also sound like a massive setback for Uber in its case with Waymo.

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We reached out to Uber for comment, and haven't heard back. We'll update this story with their response, and any other updates from the hearing.

This story is developing...