Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179 million to Google

Anthony Levandowski, the engineer and autonomous vehicle startup founder has been ordered to pay $179 million to end a contract dispute over his departure from Google.

Anthony Levandowski was at the center of a trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo.

Reuters was the first to report the court order.

According to Reuters, an arbitration panel ruled in December that Levandowski and Lior Ron had engaged in unfair competition.

They breached their contract with Google when they left the company to start a rival autonomous vehicle company focused on trucking, called Otto.

Ex-Waymo engineer Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay Google $179 million

Uber acquired Otto in 2017. A San Francisco County court confirmed the panel’s decision.

Ron settled last month with Google for $9.7 million.

However, Levandowski, had disputed the ruling.

The San Francisco County Superior Court denied his petition today, granting Google’s petition to hold Levandowski to the arbitration agreement under which he was liable.

Levandowski himself may not have to pay the money personally.

This sort of liability may fall to his employer depending on his contract or other legal quirks.

However, Levandowski personally filed today for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating that the presumptive $179M debt quite exceeds his assets.

Which he estimated at somewhere between $50M and $100M.

However, a representative for Levandowski declined comment for this story.