UBER WAS HAVING a bad month even before Waymo, Google's self-driving car outfit, filed a bombshell lawsuit accusing the ridesharing giant of swiping gobs of its autonomous driving tech.

Uber was having a bad month even before Waymo, Google's self-driving car outfit, filed a bombshell lawsuit accusing the ridesharing giant of swiping gobs of its autonomous driving tech. Now, on top of political criticisms of CEO Travis Kalanick and accusations of a sexist corporate culture, the company must worry about a legal dispute that could cost it a truckload of money, kill its self-driving research, and even land more than one executive in prison. The lawsuit, which Waymo filed Thursday, alleges former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski secretly downloaded 14,000 files proprietary technical files before leaving to found self-driving truck startup Otto. Uber acquired Otto last summer and put Levandowski in charge of its self-driving efforts. "From what we know in the complaint, this seems to be fairly straightforward," says Shawn Thompson, a former FBI attorney and federal prosecutor who now advises companies on protecting against insider threats, like employee theft.