‘Uber Files show how capital, influence and connections can bypass laws in democracies’ | Explained News,The Indian Express
The Uber Files: Dean Starkman, Senior Editor, ICIJ, David Pegg, Investigations correspondent, The Guardian, and Ritu Sarin, Executive Editor (Investigations), The Indian Express take you behind the scenes of a global probe.
Friday, Aug 26, 2022
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HomeExplained'Uber Files show how capital, influence and connections can bypass laws in democracies'
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‘Uber Files show how capital, influence and connections can bypass laws in democracies’
The Uber Files: Dean Starkman, Senior Editor, ICIJ, David Pegg, Investigations correspondent, The Guardian, and Ritu Sarin, Executive Editor (Investigations), The Indian Express take you behind the scenes of a global probe.
By: Express News Service
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Updated: August 25, 2022 5:11:01 pm
The second big point was that it was flouting local transportation and labour laws and running a business without a licence or permits. Dean Starkman, Senior Editor, ICIJ, David Pegg, Investigations correspondent, The Guardian, and Ritu Sarin, Executive Editor (Investigations), The Indian Express take you behind the scenes of a global probe. The session was moderated by Rakesh Sinha, Executive Editor, News Operations
On what’s in the Uber Files
Dean Starkman: Our data shows how Uber assembled this lobbying juggernaut and was able to gain access to powerful, democratically-elected global leaders like former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron. Once you’re in the door, you’re halfway home, and it was able to influence and shape policy globally.
The second big point was that it was flouting local transportation and labour laws and running a business without a licence or permits. So, on the one hand, its officials were wining and dining with the leaders of Western democracies and, on the other hand, they were running an operation that was essentially rogue in most of these markets. This illustrated that there was something off in the way the democratic process was working and the advantage that capital, money, influence and connections had in liberal democracies. Another major revelation was while all this was going on, they were actually using stealth technology and other tactics to evade legitimate law enforcement inquiries. This protocol was called the kill switch. So when the law enforcement came knocking, and they often did with subpoenas, Uber had a protocol to shut down the access of the local office to the main services and thwart law enforcement. It did this in Paris, Amsterdam and in India as well. It was a playbook for evading a legitimate law enforcement investigation. Uber went to great lengths to gain access to the Russian market, made intricate financial deals with Russian billionaires and oligarchs with the explicit intent of influencing the political system.
On how The Guardian sourced data
Rating: 5