Lawsuit accuses former Uber exec Robinson of stealing trade secrets

Vanguard Logistics Services (USA), Inc. (“Vanguard”), a California-based shipping and logistics company, announced today that it has filed a U.S. lawsuit against former Uber executive Fraser Robinson for fraud, theft of trade secrets, deceptive business practices and other violations of law.

The 49-page complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, located in Los Angeles, accuses Robinson of deceiving Vanguard by joining its board and violating his fiduciary responsibility by stealing its most confidential information and using it to secretly establish a rival company, London-based Beacon Technologies Ltd. Following blatant breaches of contract and other violations of law, Fraser Robinson approached and secured funding from an A-list set of technology investors, including Robinson’s former bosses at Uber, co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick and co-founder Garrett Camp, as well as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Google founder Eric Schmidt.

Robinson let slip to a journalist earlier this year that he sought a relationship with Vanguard after he saw an “opportunity” in logistics and shipping while working at Uber when the company launched Uber Freight. The lawsuit cites Robinson’s claim that he knew nothing about logistics and freight and describes how he set out to learn more about the industry by ingratiating himself with Vanguard’s owners, purporting to offer marketing services to Vanguard, whilst also stealing confidential, proprietary information.

Robinson oversaw Uber’s operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa before announcing his intention to leave the company in December 2017. His departure coincided with that of a number of other executives who stepped down in relation to a data breach and subsequent complaints of a toxic corporate culture. Robinson was never publicly linked to the controversies.

A spokesman from Vanguard commented. “We trusted Fraser Robinson as a director and fiduciary of the company, this included legal stipulations around non-disclosures and protection of Vanguard’s IP, and he betrayed that trust.

“It is fitting that Fraser Robinson launched a company founded on fraud and named it Beacon, a word that describes a warning signal. Anybody doing business with him should certainly beware.”“

The lawsuit alleges that Robinson conspired with another former Uber executive, Dmitri Izmailov, who headed Uber’s Russia operations until he left the ride-sharing company in 2018, and assisted Robinson’s efforts to pilfer Vanguard’s confidential information. Although Izmailov is not named as a defendant, he appears as an officer and co-founder of copycat company, Beacon.

The allegations against the two former Uber executives bear a striking similarity to allegations at the heart of an unrelated 2017 lawsuit filed against Uber by Waymo, a self-driving technology company, that accused Uber of working with an insider to steal its trade secrets. The two sides settled in early 2018 after Uber agreed to give Waymo $245 million worth of Uber shares.

Robinson’s decision to leave Uber was part of top management exodus that began in 2017 following the exit of former CEO and co-founder Kalanick.

A spokesperson for Beacon said: “We are surprised to hear that Vanguard have filed these proceedings. The papers have not yet been issued by the court and have not been served. What we have seen so far is an ill-thought out action which is entirely without merit and which has been brought in the wrong jurisdiction. Any claim will be robustly defended.”