Uber squints, makes room for another probe: This time it's bribery

Uber's new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi better have his caffeine on a drip, because a brand-new crisis has just landed in his lap: a US investigation into whether managers have breached foreign bribery laws.

The company is “cooperating with US investigators” from the Department of Justice regarding whether employees have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), Bloomberg writes.

An Uber bod who cannot be named told The Register this is accurate, saying: “I can confirm on background that we are cooperating fully with the DoJ's investigation.”

The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, said it's unclear whether the alleged FCPA violations involved one country or more.

The FCPA forbids American companies from bribing foreign officials to secure or maintain a business in a foreign country.

Khosrowshahi already had enough on his hands, what with sexual harassment scandals, a lawsuit over intellectual property from Google self-drive designer Waymo, another lawsuit from investor Benchmark Capital, a settlement with the FTC into its privacy practices that imposes two-yearly probes, and a promise yesterday that it will stop tracking users after their ride is over. ®