New York: Uber’s president of business in Asia-Pacific, Eric Alexander, was fired after technology website Recode reported on Wednesday night that the top executive secured medical records of a woman, who was raped by Uber driver Shiv Kumar Yadav in Delhi on December 5, 2014.
Alexander’s removal came just as the company announced that it had fired 20 employees over the last few months for harassment, discrimination and inappropriate, sexual behaviour.
According to the report, the executive was initially not part of the group of employees fired by Uber but lost his job after Recode reached out to the cab-hailing company about Alexander.
The report quoted sources as saying that Alexander had showed the medical records to "Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Senior Vice President Emil Michael".
Further, numerous executives at the car-hailing company were either told about the records or shown them by this group and sources said Alexander had carried around the document for "about a year" before other executives, "presumably the legal department, obtained the report and destroyed his copy".
Alexander's handling of the situation was among the close to 215 claims reported to two law firms which were conducting the investigations into widespread management issues at the company, the report said.
When the news website contacted the company about Alexander's actions, it was told that he was no longer employed there by an Uber spokesperson.
The 2014 incident had triggered scrutiny into Uber by the Indian government and the company was banned from operating in Delhi till June 2015. A Delhi court sentenced Yadav to life imprisonment for raping the woman in 2015.
It said while the company was publicly apologetic, "some top executives apparently had trouble believing that the incident was entirely true", including Alexander, who was already in India at that time and investigated the claims.
Alexander then brought the files to Kalanick and Michael, who read them, the report said, adding that soon all three began to consider the prospect whether Uber's main rival in India, Ola, was behind the incident to sabotage the company.
"Travis never should have looked at the report and he should have fired him immediately," said one executive.
Though Kalanick, Michael and Alexander have no medical training, they questioned the incident based on the medical report, the report said.
At the time Kalanick had condemned the New Delhi incident, saying the company will do "everything to help bring this perpetrator to justice and to support the victim and her family in her recovery".
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