Uber's Driverless Cars Are Clouded by Possible Federal Probe

A judge's unusual recommendation for federal prosecutors to investigate allegations that Uber Technologies Inc. and a top executive stole Google's driverless-car trade secrets casts a new shadow over one of Uber's most critical initiatives. U.S. District Judge William Alsup late Thursday referred Google parent Alphabet Inc.'s GOOGL -0.08% lawsuit against Uber to the U.S. Attorney's Office, asking federal prosecutors to probe Alphabet's claims that one of its former executives colluded with Uber to steal 14,000 files related to driverless-car design. Lawyers and law professors said Judge Alsup's referral has little, if any, precedent in a civil trade-secrets case. They said the judge's move suggests he believes there is strong evidence of trade-secret theft and potentially that federal investigators will be able to uncover more evidence than Alphabet's attorneys. Attorneys for Uber and Anthony Levandowski, the Google-turned-Uber executive at the center of the case, have repeatedly fought efforts to turn over some documents.