A fired Uber executive is suing top tech PR person

Rachel Whetstone
Google

• The fallout from the events that toppled Uber CEO
  Travis Kalanick and his top lieutenants is still in
  progress.
• On Thursday, Eric Alexander, an executive who was fired
  as news reports emerged that he obtained access to a rape
  victim’s medical records, filed a lawsuit against Rachel
  Whetstone, a well-known and powerful PR and public policy pro
  who was Uber’s PR boss at the time he was let go.
• And the lawsuit is remarkable, not just in the
  allegations being made in it, but also the mechanism being used
  to sue her.

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The fallout from
Uber’s terrible, horrible, nasty 2017 that toppled founding
CEO Travis Kalanick and his top lieutenants is still in
progress, with a surprising new lawsuit between two former Uber
execs sure to raise eyebrows throughout Silicon Valley.

On Thursday, Eric Alexander, one of the executives who was fired
from the $70 billion ride-hailing company during its tumultuous
year, filed a suit against Rachel Whetstone, Uber’s former public
relations boss, who also left during that year.

Alexander, who was fired as reports emerged that he had
personally obtained the medical files of a rape victim, is being
represented by litigation firm Quinn Emanuel, whose roster of
previous big name clients include the Winklevoss twins. 

The lawsuit is remarkable, not only for juicy allegations that
describe a “Game of Thrones”-like behind-the-scenes feud among
Uber executives, but also for the unusual legal claim that
Alexander is using to go after Whetsone.

To boil it down: Alexander is alleging that Whetstone spread
false rumors about him, rumors that led to news stories that
caused him to be fired. That’s a big deal given that Whetstone is
known in the Valley as a powerful PR person. PR people are rarely
accused of this sort of thing. They typically defend companies
and their execs when reporters come asking difficult questions.
Whetstone could not immediately be reached for comment. 

The lawsuit, though full of allegations as all lawsuits are, does
not include documents as evidence to back up its claims, such as
emails, texts or documents.

Eric
Alexander

YouTube/HYBIZTV
HD

The undisputed facts of the case are that Alexander was fired
within hours of reporters coming to him and the company asking
question about how he obtained the medical files of the victim of
a famous rape case in India. 

He was fired after reporters started asking questions

Alexander was Uber’s president of Asia Pacific when an Uber
driver raped a passenger in 2014, an incident which briefly
caused Uber to be banned from New Dehli. After the rape occurred,
Alexander worked with local police, providing them with Uber
route records and testifying at the trial, all of which helped
put the accused rapist in prison for life. 

The driver had been accused before, so the rape victim then sued
Uber as well. Alexander worked with Uber’s internal legal
team to hire lawyers and those lawyers obtained the police
criminal records of the case which included the woman’s medical
records, the lawsuit says. As
Business Insider previously reported, Uber eventually settled
the case with the victim for $3 million.

Fast foward two years to the summer 2017, when Uber is a world of
hurt after engineer Susan Fowler wrote a blog post detailing the
sexism and sexual harassment she experienced during her
employment there. Eric Holder and his law firm had just finished
investigating a litany of similar complaints and Uber had
announced that 20 people were fired.

Alexander was not among those 20, but when reporters from

Recode and
Bloomberg called the company to ask how an Uber executive
obtained the victim’s medical files, repeating rumors they had
heard about his treatment of those files, Alexander was
summarily fired as well. News stories at the time reported
that Uber insiders discussed if the rape incident was some sort
of plot to sabotage Uber and that the medical files were peered
at to cast doubts on the rape victim’s story — allegations that
Alexander calls “false.” 

In the lawsuit, Alexander’s lawyers allege that they believe
that Whetstone was somehow behind those rumors and news stories,
accusing her of “spreading false, disparaging and misleading
information about Mr. Alexander’s response to the India rape.” It
also says his reputation has been crushed as a result of these
stories.

A 2-way non-disparagement clause

The lawsuit delves into how Alexander and Whetstone were
regularly at odds: He publicly accused accused her of making
racist comments; she publicly accused him at a Davos conference
of mishandling these medical files, the lawsuit alleges.

And then it says something really strange: it alleges that when
Whetstone resigned from Uber, her agreement with the company
included a two-way non-disparagement clause. Companies often
require an employee to agree to a non-disparagement clause — a
provision that restricts the employee from saying anything bad
about the company in order to receive a payout. But the lawyers
say that, in an unusual move, Whetstone insisted that she be
protected from disparagement as well and that the clause even
named specific people, including Eric Alexander. 

Ironically, instead of protecting her, this clause is the basis
for the lawsuit. Alexander is suing for breach of contract
because he was named in the two-way non-disparagement clause, and
his lawyers arguing that Whetstone didn’t keep up her end of the
agreement. The lawsuit doesn’t name a hoped-for dollar figure and
Alexander isn’t suing anyone else, not even Travis Kalanick, who
was still CEO at the time Alexander was fired.

As Business Insider previously reported,
during the downfall of Uber founder CEO Travis Kalanick,
Whetstone was
one of the major players. Before Uber, Whetstone
had served for years as head of public policy and communications
at Google, growing wealthy from her time there. Once at Uber,
people saw her role as speaking “truth to power” and not under
Kalanick’s spell.

After a while Whetstone became disillusioned with Uber and
her relationship with several top executives there grew
contentious, multiple people told Business Insider. She left Uber
to join Facebook and has now left Facebook for
Netflix, Recode reports.

Here’s the lawsuit: