Major Uber investor sues Travis Kalanick, alleging fraud for 'selfish ends'

Travis Kalanick is being sued by one of Uber's largest investors, Benchmark Capital, which accuses the former chief executive of engaging in fraud in order to "increase his power over Uber for his own selfish ends". The Benchmark complaint exposes an ugly battle for power at the top of the nearly $70bn startup, which has been buffeted from crisis to crisis all year and is still searching for a replacement for Kalanick. The suit, filed on Thursday in Delaware Chancery court and first revealed by Axios, seeks to remove Kalanick from Uber's board of directors and bar him from interfering with Uber's business affairs. It demands redress for the alleged "fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and breaches of contractual obligations" perpetrated by Kalanick. The former CEO has hit back at the lawsuit, saying through a spokesperson that the case against him was "completely without merit and riddled with lies and false allegations".