An unprecedented leak of over 124,000 documents obtained by The Guardian and dubbed the "Uber Files" have shed light on the ethically questionable practices that fuelled the ride-hailing company’s global growth.
The leak spans a five-year period when Uber was run by its co-founder Travis Kalanick. The documents reveal that the company lobbied political leaders, billionaires and oligarchs and breached local laws and taxi regulations in order to take its cab-hailing service into cities around the world.
The files include 83,000 emails and 1,000 other documents involving conversations between Kalanick and his top team of executives, as well as international lobbyists, spanning 2013 to 2017.
The files involve top political figures such as French President Emmanuel Macron and ex-EU digital commissioner Neelie Kroes, among others, and mention meetings between Uber lobbyists and current or former ministers including Priti Patel, Sajid Javid, Matt...