A U.S. judge announced on Wednesday that Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick must unveil some of his emails to plaintiff lawyers in a lawsuit that accuses the company of misleading customers about how it shares gratuities with its drivers.
A customer filed a class action lawsuit against Uber earlier this year, claiming that the advertised 20 percent gratuity is "false, misleading, and only required to deceive members of the public" since Uber keeps a good amount of the money, according to Reuters.
Uber's business practices have been questioned lately, with some customers claiming privacy violations. A few weeks ago a senior Uber executive caused a stir when he told journalists that Uber should think about hiring researchers to look into and release activities of media critics.
Kalanick released a public apology for the executive's comments. Uber has also hired an outside law firm to examine its privacy policies.
In the driver gratuity lawsuit, plaintiff attorneys claim that company executives, including Kalanick, should release all emails that "contain evidence about Uber's tipping practices," according to Reuters.
Uber said that the company would be overly burdensome since such polices are likely to be set by the general manager in each city. All managers operate as their own "individual business," according to a court filing.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu said Uber is in the process of creating a new startup with "relatively few employees," during a hearing on Wednesday in an Oakland, California federal court.
Driver gratuities is a problem that Kalanick and other company executives "are likely to be involved in," Ryu said, according to Reuters.
The case is Caren Ehret vs. Uber Technologies Inc in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 14-0113.
Uber is raising new funding at a valuation of between $35 billion and $40 billion, according to a new report from Bloomberg. If this is true, Uber would be more valuable than companies like Hertz Global and Twitter.
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