Monday, July 11, 2022

Another US appeals court upholds right to record police

BY COLLEEN SLEVIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS - 07/11/22

DENVER (AP) — People have a right protected by the First Amendment to film police while they work, a Western U.S. appeals court ruled Monday in a decision that concurs with decisions made by six of the nation’s other 12 appeals court.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruling came in the case of a YouTube journalist and blogger who claimed that a suburban Denver officer blocked him from recording a 2019 traffic stop. Citing decisions from the other courts over about two decades as well as First Amendment principles, the 10th Circuit said the right to record police was clearly established at the time and reinstated the lawsuit of the blogger, Abade Irizarry.

A three-judge panel from the court said that “Mr. Irizarry’s right to film the police falls squarely within the First Amendment’s core purposes to protect free and robust discussion of public affairs, hold government officials accountable, and check abuse of power.”

While bystander video has played a vital role in uncovering examples of police misconduct in recent years, including in the killing of George Floyd, whether or not it is a right is still being determined in courts and debated by lawmakers.

The nation’s five other appeals courts have not ruled yet on the right to record police and the U.S. Supreme Court would likely not get involved in the issue unless appeals courts were on opposite sides of the issue, said Alan Chen, a University of Denver law professor and one of the First Amendment experts also urged the appeals court to rule in favor of the right of people to record police.

Meanwhile, Arizona’s Republican governor last week signed a law that makes it illegal to knowingly video record police officers 8 feet (2.5 meters) or closer without an officer’s permission.

In the Colorado case, a lower court had said there was a right to record police but did not think it was clearly established in 2019 so it blocked the officer from being sued because of the controversial legal doctrine called “qualified immunity.” It shields police officers from misconduct lawsuits unless lawyers can show that the officers were on notice that their actions violated the law at the time.

U.S. government lawyers intervened in Irizarry’s appeal to support the public’s right to record police in the 10th Circuit, which oversees four western and two midwestern states — Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah — as well as parts of Yellowstone National Park that lie in Idaho and Montana.

Irizarry’s lawyer, Andrew Tutt, said the ruling will protect the right of every citizen under the court’s jurisdiction to record police carrying out their duties.

“Today’s decision also adds to the consensus of authority on this important issue, bringing us a step closer to the day when this right is recognized and protected everywhere in the United States,” he said.

In his lawsuit, Irizarry said he was filming a police traffic stop in the city of Lakewood when he claimed Officer Ahmed Yehia stood in front of the camera to block Irizarry from recording. The officer shined a flashlight into Irizarry’s camera and the camera of another blogger. Then Yehia left the two, got into his cruiser and sped the cruiser toward the two bloggers, the lawsuit said. The cruiser swerved before reaching the bloggers and they were not hit, according to the lawsuit.

A telephone message left in the Lakewood city attorney’s office, which represented Yehia, was not returned.

Even though the court said the right to record police existed in 2019, the ruling will mostly have an impact going forward since lawsuits for police misconduct must be brought within two or three years in most states, Chen said.

NASA Releases Webb Space Telescope’s First Image

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris receive a briefing from NASA officials and preview the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope.

Biden unveils Webb space telescope’s first full-colour image of distant galaxies

The first full-color image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary apparatus designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe, shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, in a composite made from images at different wavelengths taken with a Near-Infrared Camera and released July 11, 2022. — Picture courtesy of Nasa, ESA, CSA, STScl, Webb Ero Production team via Reuters

Tuesday, 12 Jul 2022

WASHINGTON, July 12 — US President Joe Biden, pausing from political pressures to bask in the glow of the cosmos, yesterday released the debut photo from Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope — an image of a galaxy cluster revealing the most detailed glimpse of the early universe ever seen.

The White House sneak peek of Webb’s first high-resolution, full-colour image came on the eve of a larger unveiling of photos and spectrographic data that Nasa plans to showcase today at the Goddard Space Flight Centre in suburban Maryland.

The US$9 billion Webb observatory, the largest and most powerful space science telescope ever launched, was designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the known universe, ushering in a revolutionary era of astronomical discovery.

The image showcased by Biden and Nasa chief Bill Nelson showed the 4.6 billion-year-old galaxy cluster named SMACS 0723, whose combined mass acts as a “gravitational lens,” distorting space to greatly magnify the light coming from more distant galaxies behind it.

At least one of the faint, older specs of light appearing in the “background” of the photo — a composite of images of different wavelengths of light — dates back more than 13 billion years, Nelson said. That makes it just 800 million years younger than the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint that set the expansion of the known universe in motion some 13.8 billion years ago.

“It’s a new window into the history of our universe,” Biden said before the picture was unveiled. “And today we’re going to get a glimpse of the first light to shine through that window: light from other worlds, orbiting stars far beyond our own. It’s astounding to me.” He was joined at the Old Executive Office Building of the White House complex by Vice President Kamala Harris, who chairs the US National Space Council.

From grain of sand in the sky

On Friday, the space agency posted a list of five celestial subjects chosen for its showcase debut of Webb. These include SMACS 0723, a bejeweled-like sliver of the distant cosmos that according to Nasa offers “the most detailed view of the early universe to date.” It also constitutes the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant cosmos ever taken.

The thousands of galaxies were captured in a tiny patch of the sky roughly the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone standing on Earth, Nelson said.

Webb was constructed under contract by aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp. It was launched to space for Nasa and its European and Canadian counterparts on Christmas Day 2021 from French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America.

The highly anticipated release of its first imagery follows six months of remotely unfurling Webb’s various components, aligning its mirrors and calibrating instruments.

With Webb now finely tuned and fully focused, scientists will embark on a competitively selected list of missions exploring the evolution of galaxies, the life cycles of stars, the atmospheres of distant exoplanets and the moons of our outer solar system.

Built to view its subjects chiefly in the infrared spectrum, Webb is about 100 times more sensitive than its 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, which operates mainly at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.

The much larger light-collecting surface of Webb’s primary mirror — an array of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-coated beryllium metal — enables it to observe objects at greater distances, thus further back in time, than Hubble or any other telescope.

All five of Webb’s introductory targets were previously known to scientists. Among them are two enormous clouds of gas and dust blasted into space by stellar explosions to form incubators for new stars — the Carina Nebula and the Southern Ring Nebula, each thousands of light years away from Earth.

The collection also includes a galaxy clusters known as Stephan’s Quintet, which was first discovered in 1877 and encompasses several galaxies described by Nasa as “locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters.” Nasa will also present Webb’s first spectrographic analysis of an exoplanet — one roughly half the mass of Jupiter that lies more than 1,100 light years away — revealing the molecular signatures of filtered light passing through its atmosphere. — Reuters

China bank protesters win promise of repayments

Henan officials say funds frozen at rural banks will be paid back in batches

Demonstrators hold up signs during a protest over the freezing of deposits by some rural-based banks, outside a People's Bank of China building in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, on July 10. © Reuters
July 12, 2022 08:42 JST

BEIJING (Reuters) -- Authorities in China's Henan province said on Monday they will start paying back first on behalf of several rural banks funds of some clients that had been frozen, in a bid to ease anxiety among depositors that led to rare protests over the weekend.

Payments will be made in batches, with the first due on July 15, the local banking and insurance regulator and financial regulatory bureau of Henan province said in a joint statement.

On Sunday, about 1,000 people gathered outside the provincial branch of the Chinese central bank in Henan's capital of Zhengzhou to demand action.

In April, a number of banks in Henan froze deposits raised from ordinary Chinese people, with Chinese media reporting that the frozen deposits could be worth up to $1.5 billion. An investigation for possible fraud is underway.

Police say they have arrested some suspects and frozen funds in connection with the disappearance of the deposits, according to an official notice posted late on Sunday.

Henan police said the suspects were able to effectively control a number of the province's banks via a group company, according to the notice posted on an official WeChat account.

The criminal cohort used third-party financial product platforms and a firm they set up themselves to gather deposits and sell other financial products. They then made fictitious loans as a way to illegally transfer the funds, the notice said.

Payments will be made to some customers of Yuzhou Xinminsheng Rural Bank, Shangcai Huimin County Bank, Zhecheng Huanghuai Community Bank and Kaifeng New Oriental Rural Bank starting on July 15 on behalf of the lenders, the Henan financial authorities said in their statement.

China detains alleged bank fraud ‘gang’ after rare mass protests

Demonstrators hold banners during a protest over the freezing of deposits by rural-based banks, outside a People's Bank of China building in Zhengzhou, Henan province July 10, 2022. — Reuters pic

Monday, 11 Jul 2022 2:22 PM MYT

BEIJING, July 11 — Members of a “criminal gang” accused of taking control of local banks have been arrested in central China after rare protests over alleged financial corruption sparked violent clashes between customers and authorities.

Hit hard by the country’s economic slowdown, four banks in Henan province have since mid-April frozen all cash withdrawals, leaving thousands of small savers without funds and sparking sporadic demonstrations.

In one of the largest such rallies yet, hundreds gathered Sunday outside a branch of the People’s Bank of China in Henan’s capital Zhengzhou demanding their money, according to multiple witnesses who declined to be named.

Protesters held banners accusing local officials and police of corruption, calling on the central government to “give severe punishment to Henan”, video footage verified by AFP showed.

Local authorities did not immediately comment on the protests, but police in nearby Xuchang city said late Sunday that they had arrested members of an alleged “criminal gang” for their suspected involvement in a scheme to gain control of local banks.

The gang made illegal transfers through fictitious loans and used their shareholdings — as well as “manipulation of executives” — to effectively take over several local banks starting in 2011, police said.

The province’s banking and insurance regulator also said late Sunday that it was “accelerating” plans to tackle the local financial crisis and “protect the legal rights and interests of the broader public.” Footage of Sunday’s rally showed the protestors throwing objects, while one participant told AFP on Sunday that demonstrators were hit and injured by unidentified men.

Another video verified by AFP showed a crying woman complaining about her lost money being forced onto a bus by police.

Another man with a swollen eye said he had been beaten by “gangsters” and dragged onto the bus by police.

Some demonstrators accused officials of colluding with local banks to suppress rallies, and provincial authorities were suspected last month of abusing the country’s mandatory health code to effectively bar protestors from public spaces.

Demonstrations are relatively rare in tightly controlled China, where authorities enforce social stability at all cost and where opposition is swiftly repressed.

But desperate citizens have occasionally succeeded in organising mass gatherings, usually when their targets are local governments or individual corporations rather than the Communist Party itself.

The demonstrators in Henan largely drew sympathy on Chinese social media on Monday, with many on the Weibo platform pointing the finger at local officials.

“Why are you treating ordinary people like this?” one Weibo user asked in a post on Monday.

“Please strictly investigate the Henan government.” — AFP

China crushes mass protest by bank depositors demanding their life savings back

By Nectar Gan, CNN

Mon July 11, 2022

Hong Kong (CNN)

Chinese authorities on Sunday violently dispersed a peaceful protest by hundreds of depositors, who sought in vain to demand their life savings back from banks that have run into a deepening cash crisis.

Since April, four rural banks in China's central Henan province have frozen millions of dollars worth of deposits, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of customers in an economy already battered by draconian Covid lockdowns.

Anguished depositors have staged several demonstrations in the city of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan, over the past two months, but their demands have invariably fallen on deaf ears.
On Sunday, more than 1,000 depositors from across China gathered outside the Zhengzhou branch of the country's central bank, the People's Bank of China, to launch their largest protest yet, more than half a dozen protesters told CNN.

The demonstration is among the largest China has seen since the pandemic, with domestic travel limited by various Covid restrictions on movement. Last month, Zhengzhou authorities even resorted to tampering with the country's digital Covid health-code system to restrict the movements of depositors and thwart their planned protest, sparking a nationwide outcry.

China's bank run victims planned to protest. Then their Covid health codes turned red

This time, most protesters arrived outside the bank before dawn -- some as early as 4 a.m. -- to avoid being intercepted by authorities. The crowd, which includes the elderly and children, occupied a flight of imposing stairs outside the bank, chanting slogans and holding up banners.
"Henan banks, return my savings!" they shouted in unison, many waving Chinese flags, in videos shared with CNN by two protesters.
Using national flags to display patriotism is a common strategy for protesters in China, where dissent is strictly suppressed. The tactic is meant to show that their grievances are only against local governments, and that they support and rely on the central government to seek redress.

"Against the corruption and violence of the Henan government," a banner written in English read.
A large portrait of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong was pasted on a pillar at the entrance of the bank.
Across the street, hundreds of police and security personnel -- some in uniforms and others in plain clothes -- assembled and surrounded the site, as protesters shouted "gangsters" at them.

A banner in Chinese reads: "400,000 depositors dashed their Chinese dream in Henan."

Violent crackdown

The face-off lasted for several hours until after 11 a.m., when rows of security officers suddenly charged up the stairs and clashed with protesters, who threw bottles and other small objects at them.

The scene quickly descended into chaos, as security officers dragged protesters down the stairs and beat those who resisted, including women and the elderly, according to witnesses and social media videos.

One woman from eastern Shandong province told CNN she was pushed to the ground by two security guards, who twisted and injured her arm. A 27-year-old man from the southern city of Shenzhen, surnamed Sun, said he was kicked by seven or eight guards on the ground before being carried away. A 45-year-old man from the central city of Wuhan said his shirt was completely torn at the back during the scuffle.

Many said they were shocked by the sudden burst of violence by the security forces.
"I did not expect them to be so violent and shameless this time. There was no communication, no warning before they brutally dispersed us," said one depositor from a metropolis outside Henan who had protested in Zhengzhou previously, and who requested CNN conceal his name due to security concerns.

"Why would government employees beat us up? We're only ordinary people asking for our deposits back, we did nothing wrong," the Shandong woman said.

Videos taken by witnesses at the scene show protesters being forcefully taken away by plain-clothes security agents.

The protesters were hurled onto dozens of buses and sent to makeshift detention sites across the city -- from hotels and schools to factories, according to people taken there. Some injured were escorted to hospitals; many were released from detention by the late afternoon, the people said.

CNN has reached out to the Henan provincial government for comment.
The Zhengzhou Business District Police Station -- which has jurisdiction over the protest site -- hung up on CNN's call requesting comment.
Late on Sunday night, the Henan banking regulator issued a terse statement, saying "relevant departments" were speeding up efforts to verify information on customer funds at the four rural banks.

"(Authorities) are coming up with a plan to deal with the issue, which will be announced in the near future," the statement said.
Police in Xuchang, a city neighboring Zhengzhou, said in a statement late Sunday they recently arrested members of an alleged "criminal gang," who were accused of effectively taking control over the Henan rural banks starting from 2011 -- by leveraging their shareholdings and "manipulating banks executives."
The suspects were also accused of illegally transferring funds through fictitious loans, the police said, adding that some of their funds and assets had been seized and frozen.

Shattered lives
The protest comes at a politically sensitive time for the ruling Communist Party, just months before its leader Xi Jinping is expected to seek an unprecedented third term at a key meeting this fall.
Large-scale demonstrations over lost savings and ruined livelihoods could be perceived as a political embarrassment for Xi, who has promoted a nationalistic vision of leading the country to "great rejuvenation."

Small banks in China are running into trouble. Savers could lose everything
Henan authorities are under tremendous pressure to stop the protests. But depositors remain undeterred. As the issue drags on, many have become ever more desperate to recover their savings.
Huang, the depositor from Wuhan, lost his job in the medical cosmetology industry this year, as businesses struggled in the pandemic. Yet he is unable to withdraw any of his life savings -- of over 500,000 yuan ($75,000) -- from a rural bank in Henan.
"Being unemployed, all I can live on is my past savings. But I can't even do that now -- how am I supposed to (support my family)?" said Huang, whose son is in high school.
Sun, from Shenzhen, is struggling to keep his machine factory from bankruptcy after losing his deposit of 4 million yuan ($597,000) to a Henan bank. He can't even pay his more than 40 employees without the funds.
Sun said he was covered in bruises and had a swollen lower back after being repeatedly stomped by security guards at the protest.
"The incident completely overturned my perception of the government. I've lived all my life placing so much faith in the government. After today, I'll never trust it again," he said.

CNN's Beijing bureau and Yong Xiong contributed to this report

Chinese bank depositors face police in angry protest
10 Jul, 2022

People hold banners and chant slogans during a protest at the entrance to a branch of China's central bank in Zhengzhou in central China's Henan Province. Photo / AP
AP

A large crowd of angry Chinese bank depositors faced off with police on Sunday, some roughed up as they were taken away, in a case that has drawn attention because of earlier attempts to use a Covid-19 tracking app to prevent them from mobilising.

Hundreds of people held up banners and chanted slogans on the wide steps of the entrance to a branch of China's central bank in the city of Zhengzhou in Henan province, about 620km southwest of Beijing. Video taken by a protester shows plainclothes security teams being pelted with water bottles and other objects as they charge the crowd.

Later videos posted on social media show an unclear number of protesters being shoved forward individually and downstairs by security teams dressed in plain white or black T-shirts. Phone calls to Zhengzhou city and Henan province police rang unanswered.

The protesters are among thousands of customers who opened accounts at six rural banks in Henan and neighbouring Anhui province that offered higher interest rates. They later found they could not withdraw their funds after media reports that the head of the banks' parent company was on the run and wanted for financial crimes.

"We came today and wanted to get our savings back, because I have elderly people and children at home, and the inability to withdraw savings has seriously affected my life," said a woman from Shandong province, who only gave her last name, Zhang, out of fear of retribution.

What had been a local scandal became a national incident last month because of the misuse of the Covid 19 tracking app. Many who set out for Zhengzhou to demand action from regulators found that their health status on the app had turned red, preventing them from travelling. Some reported being questioned by police after checking into their hotel about why they had come to the city. Five Zhengzhou officials were later punished.

The protesters assembled before dawn on Sunday in front of the People's Bank of China building in Zhengzhou. Police vehicles with flashing lights can be seen in videos taken in the early morning darkness. Police closed off the street and by 8am had started massing on the other side, Zhang said.

A large crowd of angry Chinese bank depositors faced off with police Sunday, some reportedly injured as they were roughly taken away. Photo / AP

Besides uniformed police, there were the teams of men in plain T-shirts. A banking regulator and a local government official arrived, but their attempts to talk to the crowd were shouted down. Zhang and another protester, a man from Beijing surnamed Yang, told the AP the protesters had heard from the officials before and don't believe what they say. Yang declined to be identified by his full name, fearing pressure from authorities.

The police then announced to the protesters from a vehicle with a megaphone that they were an illegal assembly and would be detained and fined if they didn't leave. Around 10 am, the men in T-shirts rushed the crowd and dispersed them. Zhang said she saw women dragged down the stairs of the bank entrance.

Zhang herself was hit, and said she asked the officer, "Why did you hit me?" According to her, he responded: "What's wrong with beating you?"
Related articles

Yang said he was hit by two security officers including one who had fallen off the stairs and mistakenly thought in the chaos that Yang had hit or pushed him.

"Although repeated protests and demonstrations don't necessarily have a big impact, I think it is still helpful if more people get to know about us, and understand or sympathise with us," Yang said. "Each time you do it, you might make a difference. Although you will get hit, they can't really do anything to you, right?"

A large crowd of angry Chinese bank depositors faced off with police Sunday, some reportedly injured as they were roughly taken away. Photo / AP

The protesters were bused to various sites where Zhang said they were forced to sign a letter guaranteeing they would not gather anymore.

Late Sunday, Henan banking regulators posted a short notice on their website saying that authorities are speeding up the verification of customer funds in four of the banks and the formulation of a plan to resolve the situation to protect the rights and interests of the public.

- AP

CRIMINAL GIG CAPITALI$M

Uber wooed Russia's rich and powerful but failed there anyway

Ian Duncan, Jul 12 2022

NAM Y. HUH/AP

LONG READ

As Uber pushed into markets around the world, the ride-sharing service lobbied political leaders to relax labour and taxi laws.

When Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick touched down in Moscow in June 2016, Uber was on the march in Russia.

The company had worked hard to forge ties in a nation notoriously tricky for Western businesses and had leaned on all the questionable, grow-at-all-costs tactics that had become its hallmark around the globe.

It cultivated oligarchs and government officials at a time when the country faced growing international condemnation for seizing Crimea from Ukraine and stoking war in that country's east. It sold a US$200 million (NZ$327m) stake to a pair of oligarchs in a quest to get close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite the authoritarian drift of Putin's government, then, according to previously unpublicised emails among company executives, offered a US$50 million deal sweetener that it didn't publicise. It agreed, emails show, to hire a lobbyist for as much as US$650,000 in an arrangement so concerning to Uber's lawyers that they insisted the lobbyist submit to training in US anti-bribery law.

Uber's approach appeared to be working, and on the second night of Kalanick's trip, tech entrepreneurs and government officials assembled around a vast table to dine with the Uber executive at the Moscow City Golf Club.

READ MORE:
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* Uber promises to make things right in London after 'constructive' licence meeting

Six kilometres from the Kremlin, the 9-hole club stood atop a former city dump and wasn't as fancy as those in the suburbs, but it still offered a kind of stuffy luxury. According to a table plan obtained by The Washington Post, Kalanick was to sit across from one of Putin's ministers and the head of Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank.

Kalanick left the following morning, seemingly happy with his time in Moscow. His team was pleased, too.

"Russia trips seems to have been a success," Rachel Whetstone, then the company's communications director, wrote to Mark MacGann, a former Uber public policy executive who by then had become an adviser to the board and had joined the trip to chaperone Kalanick.

"Was a great 36-hour immersion," MacGann replied. "Media very strong”.

Uber viewed Russia as among the company's most important foreign markets, according to a memo that is part of the Uber Files, a trove of more than 124,000 documents that MacGann provided to the Guardian. It shared the trove with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a nonprofit newsroom in Washington, DC, that helped lead the project, and dozens of other news organisations, including The Washington Post. The documents provide a detailed look at the aggressive strategies Uber adopted to grow in Europe and other international markets. MacGann was the company's' head of public policy from 2014 to 2016.

That memo shows that Uber believed Russia's dozen "millionniki" - cities home to at least a million people - presented a ripe opportunity. But like the golf club's, Uber's foundations in Russia were questionable. A little over a year later, Uber would essentially pull out of the country.

The retreat was evidence that even with piles of investor cash and a willingness to embrace the Russian elite at a time of growing authoritarianism, Uber's growth had limits. In nations such as Russia and China, which Uber also exited, the pathways to power were obscure to outsiders, and homegrown competitors could dominate.

The files do not contain evidence that Uber violated sanctions or broke the law as it tried to grow in Russia. But today, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, almost everyone with whom Uber allied then is under sanction for their alleged ties to Putin by US or European authorities.

Devon Spurgeon, a spokesperson for Kalanick, said he had only limited involvement in Uber's expansion in Russia and was not aware of anyone acting on Uber's behalf in the country in a way that violated American or Russian laws.

CHRIS J RATCLIFFE/GETTY IMAGES
The company had worked hard to forge ties in a nation notoriously tricky for Western businesses.

"Kalanick's role was limited to a trip to Russia that included a few meetings arranged by Uber's policy and business development teams," Spurgeon said. She added that Kalanick "was asked for his involvement" after Uber's "robust" legal, policy and business development teams had "vetted and approved the strategy and operations plans."

"Kalanick acted at all times lawfully and with the clear approval and authorization of Uber's legal team," Spurgeon said. "Kalanick is not aware of anyone acting on Uber's behalf in Russia who engaged in any conduct that would have violated either Russian or US law."

Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for Uber, said nobody currently at the company was involved in developing its strategy in Russia and that today it discloses its anti-corruption policies.

"Current Uber management thinks Putin is reprehensible and disavows any previous association with him or those close to him," Hazelbaker wrote.

But in 2016, Russia's future remained unclear, and Uber's leadership had reason to think its investments would pay off.

The files show that Sberbank's chief executive, Herman Gref, introduced Uber officials to the mayor of Moscow, and Uber credited the bank's help in securing a deal with city authorities that avoided a demand that all Uber drivers have yellow cars. They also show that in February 2016, Uber accepted US$200 million from LetterOne, the investment firm of Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, oligarchs who made their fortunes after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and struck a secret deal worth an additional US$50 million to encourage them to aid its success in Russia.

With the help of a lobbyist Fridman and Aven's firm recommended, company emails and memos show, Uber was working to have a federal law on taxis written to stop regional governments from being able to limit Uber's growth.

Jessica Tillipman, an assistant dean at George Washington University Law School, said that pursuing that kind of lobbying strategy in Russia, where the risk of corruption is high, would have been risky under American anti-bribery laws.

"It's kind of a blazing red flag," she said. "There are many companies that would opt to walk away from something like this”.

By year's end, Uber expected to be in 18 cities in Russia, according to a company memo.

But there were signs that not all was well. As an American company with global ambitions, Uber was increasingly out of step with how Russia was evolving in the mid-2010s.

The company's core customers were westward-looking members of the middle class - whom Uber portrayed as wanting to use the same app Parisians used, even if they could no longer afford to travel to France, according to a company memo - and its political allies were economic reformers with ties to the United States and Europe. But the rising force in Russia was Putin, who was consolidating control over the country and curbing the independence of tech companies in particular.

Uber had other weaknesses, too. Consultants hired by Uber had concluded that Fridman and Aven's political influence was not what it had been thought to be, according to a report they provided to the company. Company executives would soon come to believe their handpicked lobbyist hadn't done much to justify his tens of thousands of dollars in monthly fees. And while Uber hadn't faced the kind of entrenched opposition from the taxi industry that it had battled elsewhere in Europe, it did have to contend with a large, homegrown rival in the form of Russia's answer to Google, Yandex.

Despite MacGann's upbeat appraisal of the Moscow trip for Whetstone, he shared a different view of Kalanick's performance with David Plouffe, a former adviser to US President Barack Obama who, as an Uber executive, had helped lay the groundwork for the company in Russia.

"Neither his head nor his heart are in it," MacGann wrote in an email. "He's exhausted”.

AMY RIDOUT/STUFF
Uber tried to get a foothold in Russia.

Uber had entered Russia in 2013, initially facing little opposition. But after it launched the low-cost UberX service, the authorities began to take notice. A backbench member of the Duma, the lower chamber of Russia's parliament, wrote to Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in September 2014 calling for the company to be banned. There was little threat of that, Uber's leaders concluded, but they began looking for oligarchs and other influential figures who could serve as allies.

Emil Michael, then Uber's chief business officer, wrote to MacGann that month wondering whether Roman Abramovich, then the owner of the Chelsea soccer club in England, might be a good choice: "I think we want someone aligned with Putin and I don't know the politics in Russia super well."

In early 2015, Uber's leaders in Russia and Europe began sizing up a shortlist of the country's richest men, emails show. Experts on Russian politics say it's not clear how much sway many oligarchs - billionaires who in some cases made their fortunes by snapping up government assets after the fall of the Soviet Union - held as Putin tightened his grip.

But Uber's leaders and advisers saw them as the key to success, replicating an approach the company had used in other countries that involved lining up strategic partners who brought both money and political influence.

In Russia, though, it was a potentially risky path.

MacGann sent a note listing five possible names, and Dmitri Izmailov, Uber's manager in Russia, circulated a brief memo in January summarising their wealth, business interests, political ties and accusations of wrongdoing they had faced: "It's a colourful group of people."

Izmailov declined to comment.

Among the candidates was Alisher Usmanov, a metals magnate, who was convicted of economic offences in the 1980s during the Soviet era. His spokesman said the charges were politically motivated and later overturned. Hazelbaker said that at the time he was being considered, Uber executives were aware he had been accused of corruption.

Three days later, MacGann wrote to Michael that he had spoken with an investor who worked for Usmanov.

Michael urged caution: "We got to be clean with Russia investors, but at the same time not insult them so let's be careful what we say to any Russian investors."

Asked recently about the exchange, a spokesman for Michael said Uber's foreign investors were approved and vetted by the company's policy and public relations team, and its legal and compliance team.

"Uber operated in Russia along with most other large US-based global businesses," the spokesman said. "Uber never courted any individuals who were subject to US sanctions in any way and abided by best practices for all US businesses operating in the country."

Usmanov would invest US$20 million in Uber before the end of 2015, according to Uber memos. The company's team in Russia planned to put his influence to use, according to a strategy document from that fall, but there's no record in the files of him aiding Uber. When Uber was asked by Fortune about the investment in early 2016, Michael wrote to MacGann and another Uber executive, "We DO NOT want to confirm this at all."

Grigory Levchenko, a spokesman for Usmanov's company, USM, said Usmanov had never been involved in politics. "USM and Uber were negotiating a purely financial investment, and USM's involvement was limited to this," Levchenko said, adding that USM made a profit on its investment in Uber.

By March 2015, Abramovich had decided not to invest but continued to advise Uber as it sought other partners in Russia. The company's leaders had added Sberbank to its target list. The bank traces its history back to the time of the czars, and under Gref's leadership it had been overhauled and modernized.

MacGann said he could make the introduction to Gref, and in July 2015, he and Plouffe made a trip to Moscow to begin the long courtship that culminated in the golf club dinner.

Plouffe did not respond to questions about his activities for Uber involving Russia. Gref and Sberbank did not respond to questions about their dealings with Uber.

ANDY JACKSON/STUFF
Russia was seen as a key emerging market for the company.

As the Uber team began to establish relationships in Russia, the challenge the Moscow authorities posed to Uber's growth was becoming clear.

A top official in the Moscow government had called for national regulation of ride-hailing companies and demanded an investigation into Uber. On August 24, 2015, a local prosecutor paid Uber a visit, asking for a meeting within two days to address a litany of complaints against the company. The local authorities wanted Uber to use only drivers with taxi licences and operate only yellow vehicles, something that Uber saw as a major barrier to recruitment.

"Looks like we need to ramp up our alliances on the ground, and fast," MacGann wrote after learning about the investigation.

Other threats loomed. Under the heading "growing pressure," an October 2015 summary of Uber's position in Russia also listed investigations from a federal anti-monopoly authority, a tax agency and prosecutors in St. Petersburg.

But Uber was beginning to make headway and lock in allies. Usmanov had invested, and talks were underway with LetterOne. Uber and Sberbank had signed a publicly announced deal to work together on mobile payments and vehicle financing. An executive at the bank promised to speak to the Moscow official who had demanded the investigation and explore the possibility of a meeting between Uber and the mayor of Moscow, an Uber executive wrote in an email after the agreement was signed. US authorities had placed limited sanctions on Sberbank, but Uber's lawyers advised in December 2015 that they wouldn't get in the way of the agreement, according to an email.

Then, in Davos for the 2016 edition of the World Economic Forum, Kalanick personally helped reel in LetterOne's investment. Kalanick met Alexey Reznikovich, the managing partner of LetterOne Technology, at the five-star Belvedere Hotel, according to his calendar.

"TK did great job at getting Alexey comfortable - created strong contact," MacGann wrote.

Reznikovich did not respond to requests for comment.

In February, the deal was signed. Uber agreed that LetterOne could publicise the investment, a break from its usual practice. But in a news release, Kalanick only hinted at what Uber saw as the major value of the partnership, saying, "L1's knowledge of emerging markets will be crucial”.

Unmentioned: A US$50 million side deal with LetterOne in the form of warrants - financial instruments that typically allow the holder to buy more stock at favourable prices - designed to incentivise LetterOne to help Uber grow in Russia, according to company emails describing the deal.

Hazelbaker said even if LetterOne "did nothing" it could have still used the warrants, and that they were tied to "Uber's relative growth in Russia, as measured by the number of trips happening in the country”.

In a recent interview, Aven, who resigned as a LetterOne director earlier this year, said he recalled one meeting with an Uber employee but was not involved in the investment in the company. He said he did not lobby on Uber's behalf.

"I can give you a comment because it's easy," he said. "I was not involved with Uber at all”.

Fridman, who also resigned as a LetterOne director this year, said his involvement with Uber also was minimal.

"Except for my very short meeting with Kalanick, I was not involved with the Uber investment or with any lobbying," Fridman said in a recent interview.

A spokesperson for LetterOne also said the company did not engage in any lobbying, and the decision to hire any lobbyist was Uber's.

"L1 became a modest strategic investor in Uber's multibillion-dollar funding round on the basis of Uber's potential in Asia and Russia," the spokesman said.

But to Uber leaders, the partnership quickly proved its worth. Within weeks, they were crediting LetterOne and Sberbank with helping Uber and the Moscow authorities reach an operating agreement, emails show, easing one major source of pressure on the company. Uber agreed to use cars with taxi licences and share some data with the local government but avoided requirements such as having to operate yellow vehicles.

With allies in place and the Moscow authorities at bay, MacGann and one of Uber's outside advisers began crafting a strategy in a document titled "taming the bear." The focus was passing a favourable federal law through the Duma that would allow Uber to grow relatively unchecked by limiting the power of regional authorities to require cars of a particular color or cap the number of taxi licences.

"The team believes that we should get organised, and fast, for an effective and comprehensive all-out lobbying campaign," they wrote in a draft memo outlining the plan.

Experts on Russian politics said Aven and Fridman's influence by 2016 was likely not substantial, but Uber's leaders were optimistic nonetheless. In an email, MacGann described the men as being part of a circle of the top 20 people who mattered in Russia.

"Having allies such as Aven, Gref and Fridman is quite unprecedented for a foreign (and US to boot) business seeking to disrupt the status quo in Russia and generate substantial income," MacGann wrote.

The new investors from LetterOne were keen to help - with one addition.

They proposed having Vladimir Senin, an executive at a bank they also ran, serve as Uber's lobbyist at a cost of US$50,000 a month, according to emails among Uber leaders describing the pitch. The proposal troubled Uber's leadership team, including Whetstone, who urged colleagues in emails to be sure they considered other consultants.

"I don't want to have our agencies decided by outsiders or to appoint an agency without a tender between three or four firms so that we know we have the best fit at the best cost," she wrote.

The potential cost, which at one point in the discussions with Senin ballooned to a proposed US$800,000 for about 7 months' work, also became an issue.

"It is so much money," Whetstone wrote. "Can we negotiate. Basically over 100k a month which I would never normally pay”.

Whetstone declined to comment on the specifics of her involvement with Uber's business in Russia. She said in general that she "consistently pushed back on Uber's more aggressive business practices."

Senin did not respond to requests for comment.

Uber's lawyers also raised concerns about the arrangement, according to a summary of their guidance, written by Uber executive Fraser Robinson. They worried about the possibility that Senin would take actions for which the company would be legally responsible.

"Ultimately there is no absolute way to prevent this, but the best we can do will most likely be to speak to L1 and tell them that they need to make 200% clear to Senin that any bribes will not be tolerated, and that we may hold the discretionary warrants as collateral," Robinson wrote to MacGann.

Robinson declined to comment.

In an April 2016 email, an Uber lawyer wrote that it would be preferable for LetterOne itself to be responsible for the lobbying. Otherwise, Senin and his team should be required to undergo compliance training and provide documentation of their activities.

Just as MacGann had labelled some of the legal advice too conservative, Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, an outside adviser to Uber, called the idea "totally absurd”.

"I see this all the time from idiot lawyers in the US who think that the world should work like a suburb of Seattle," he wrote to MacGann.

In a statement, Wegg-Prosser's firm, Global Counsel, said its work for Uber's European team "was undertaken in adherence with all relevant EU and UK guidelines”.

Ultimately, Uber agreed to hire Senin in a deal worth up to US$650,000. A draft of his contract included the training requirement and a pledge that he would not violate anti-corruption laws. Hazelbaker said a contract Uber found in its records "contains robust anti-corruption provisions”.

In response to questions, MacGann said he had concerns at the time about the amount Uber was being asked to pay Senin.

"This was clearly irregular," he said. "I made my concerns clear to the management team in San Francisco, including to my direct boss at the time."

But the company was up against a deadline, fearing that in Duma elections in the fall a key sympathetic lawmaker might lose his seat.

RICHARD DREW/AP
The logo for Uber appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

In the spring of 2016, Uber's team in Europe began planning for Kalanick to come to Moscow. He had already met some of Uber's key partners at Davos and hosted Gref at the company's San Francisco headquarters, but now it was time to visit them on their home turf.

The trip would illustrate how closely tied politics and business were in Russia, with Kalanick often sharing a table with corporate leaders and top government officials.

"God love the Russians, where business and politics are so cosy," MacGann wrote.

Even though it was June, Kalanick's first night in Moscow was as cold, he said, as the coldest day in California. Huddled under red blankets or wearing coats, a crowd of about 1700 people had turned out to see Kalanick explain how Uber could help bust Moscow's traffic - "probki," as he had learned Russians called it. Kalanick, wearing a borrowed jacket, delivered his presentation awkwardly before taking questions.

A reporter from a Russian outlet struck right at the heart of one of Uber's biggest challenges in Russia: the stiff competition from other operators.

"Your ambitious plan about Russia and changing the traffic situation, are they real?" the reporter asked. "Uber honestly is nowadays one of the smallest taxi apps. I'm sorry for that, but we have Yandex Taxi."

"Boo," Kalanick said, talking over her. "It's OK, it's OK."

Yandex's taxi company was a branch of the Russian tech firm, which also ran a search engine and mapping service. In internal reports, Uber estimated that in March 2016, Uber was conducting 420,000 trips per week to Yandex's 750,000. Uber executives saw potential for working with Yandex but also found the Russian company unwilling to join its lobbying efforts.

On Monday morning, Kalanick met with one of Russia's deputy prime ministers at a pizzeria before heading across town to Fridman's offices. Kalanick might have boasted about cutting traffic, but to get to the dinner with Gref on time, his team decided they would have to take the Metro.

"Good news: we took metro and it meant we were on time for Gref influencer dinner instead of 45 minutes late," MacGann texted Whetstone. The bad news, he said, was that they had passed through stations that looked like some of the grimmer parts of London, rather than the palatial ones for which Moscow is famous.

The visit ended the next morning on an inauspicious note: Kalanick overslept and forgot his phone at the hotel.

GETTY IMAGES
Russia showed that there were parts of the globe that Uber simply couldn't conquer.

The week before Kalanick's visit, Uber had hired an in-house government relations executive in Russia. Marat Murtazin had held a similar role with oil giant BP. That meant he had an awkward history with Fridman and Aven, who had used the proceeds from a collapsed joint venture with BP to launch their investment firm.

As Murtazin got to grips with Uber's position in Russia, he soon began to question whether Senin was doing the lobbying work he claimed. Other Uber executives, including Whetstone, were also concerned about Senin's performance.

"I think that we let Senin to play a guaranteed win lottery without even making him to pay for a lottery - ticket," Murtazin wrote to Robinson in his idiosyncratic English.

Murtazin did not respond to requests for comment.

By July 2016, Uber had decided to end Senin's contract. But it was a delicate subject, because some company leaders feared it would alienate Aven, his patron. They ultimately paid him US$300,000, leaving Senin "very happy," according to Murtazin.

"What an absolutely terrible waste of money," MacGann wrote to Murtazin.

Hazelbaker confirmed Senin was paid.

"We certainly would not engage with Senin today," she said.

The prospects of the taxi law passing before the election were also slipping away as different factions battled over its contents. Uber's team decided to regroup and develop a plan for the new session of the Duma. The taxi law was never passed, according to the Duma's records.

In June 2017, Kalanick resigned as chief executive after a wave of allegations about sexual harassment at Uber. Within weeks, Uber had signed a deal to form a joint venture controlled by Yandex, marking the end of its efforts to expand in Russia. Uber began winding down its involvement in that venture in 2021, accelerating its efforts after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February. Fridman and Aven's LetterOne later sold its stake in Uber at a loss, according to Russian media reports.

Just as the company's buccaneering culture had finally caught up with Kalanick, Russia had shown that there were parts of the globe that Uber simply couldn't conquer.

The Washington Post

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M UBER ALLES

Uber files: Leaked docs reveal top politicians secretly aided Uber lobbying

Emmanuel Macron among politicians who aided lobbying

| AFP, Times of Malta

According to media reports, Uber lobbied governments to aid its expansion, finding, in particular, an ally in France's Emmanuel Macron. Uber executives also reportedly met with Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu and George Osborne.

File photos: AFP, Shutterstock.

A leaked cache of confidential files from ride-sharing company Uber illustrates ethically dubious and potentially illegal tactics it used to fuel its frenetic global expansion beginning nearly a decade ago, a joint media investigation shows.

Dubbed the "Uber Files," the investigation involving dozens of news organizations found that company officials leveraged the sometimes violent backlash from the taxi industry against drivers to garner support and evaded regulatory authorities as it looked to conquer new markets early in its history.

Culled from 124,000 documents from 2013-2017 initially obtained by British daily the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the revelations are the latest hit for a company dogged by controversy as it exploded into a disruptive force in local transportation.

The cache includes unvarnished text and email exchanges between executives, with standouts from co-founder and former chief executive Travis Kalanick, who was forced to resign in 2017 following accusations of brutal management practices and multiple episodes of sexual and psychological harassment at the company.

"Violence guarantee(s) success," Kalanick messaged other company leaders as he pushed for a counter protest amid sometimes heated demonstrations in Paris in 2016 against Uber's arrival in the market.

Uber's rapid expansion leaned on subsidized drivers and discounted fares that undercut the taxi industry, and "often without seeking licenses to operate as a taxi and livery service," reported The Washington Post, one of the media outlets involved in the probe.

Drivers across Europe had faced violent retaliation as taxi drivers felt their livelihoods threatened. The investigation found that "in some instances, when drivers were attacked, Uber executives pivoted quickly to capitalize" to seek public and regulatory support, the Post said.

According to the Guardian, Uber has adopted similar tactics in European countries including Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy, mobilising drivers and encouraging them to complain to the police when they were victims of violence, in order to use media coverage to obtain concessions from the authorities.

A spokesperson for Kalanick strongly denied the findings as a "false agenda," saying he "never suggested that Uber should take advantage of violence at the expense of driver safety."

Uber, however, placed the blame Sunday on previously publicised "mistakes" made by leadership under Kalanick.

"We've moved from an era of confrontation to one of collaboration, demonstrating a willingness to come to the table and find common ground with former opponents, including labour unions and taxi companies," it said, noting that his replacement, Dara Khosrowshahi, "was tasked with transforming every aspect of how Uber operates."
'Kill switch'

The investigation also found that Uber worked to evade regulatory probes by leveraging a technological edge, the Post wrote.

It described an instance when Kalanick implemented a "kill switch" to remotely cut off access of devices in an Amsterdam office to Uber's internal systems during a raid by authorities.

"Please hit the kill switch ASAP," he wrote in an email to an employee. "Access must be shut down in AMS (Amsterdam)."

Kalanick spokesperson Devon Spurgeon said the former chief executive "never authorised any actions or programs that would obstruct justice in any country."

Kalanick "did not create, direct or oversee these systems set up by legal and compliance departments and has never been charged in any jurisdiction for obstruction of justice or any related offence," she said.

But the investigation charged that Uber's actions flouted laws and that executives were aware, citing one joking that they had become "pirates."

The reports say the files reveal Uber also lobbied governments to aid its expansion, finding, in particular, an ally in France's Emmanuel Macron, who was economy minister from 2014 to 2016 and is now the country's president.

The company believed Macron would encourage regulators "to be 'less conservative' in their interpretation of rules limiting the company's operations," the Post said.

Macron was an open supporter of Uber and the idea of turning France into a "start-up nation" in general, but the leaked documents suggest that the minister's support even sometimes clashed with the leftist government's policies.

The revelations sparked indignation among leftist politicians, who denounced the Uber-Macron links as against "all our rules, all our social rights and against workers' rights," and condemned the "pillage of the country."
Meeting Biden, Netanyahu, Osborne

The Guardian also reports that when Joe Biden, US vice-president and a supporter of Uber at the time, was late to a meeting with the company at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Kalanick texted a colleague: “I’ve had my people let him know that every minute late he is, is one less minute he will have with me.”

Following the meeting, Biden appears to have amended his speech to refer to a CEO whose company would give millions of workers “freedom to work as many hours as they wish, manage their own lives as they wish”, the Guardian reports.

Apart from meeting the former US vice-president, Uber executives also reportedly met with Macron, Irish prime minister Enda Kenny, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UK’s chancellor George Osborne. The Guardian reports that according to a note from the meeting Osborne was a “strong advocate”.

In a reaction published by the Guardian, Osborne said it was the explicit policy of the government at the time to meet with global tech firms and “persuade them to invest in Britain, and create jobs here”.