SAN FRANCISCO — Uber has dismissed a senior executive who hold the medical records of a woman who was raped by an Uber driver in India.
Eric Alexander, Uber’s president of business in Asia, was fired on Tuesday after reporters began asking questions about his actions, according to three people familiar with the matter who requested obscurity because they were unauthorized to speak publicly on this matter.
Uber has spent the last three months attacking a series of explosive claims about misconduct in its offices around the world, including accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination. Next week, employees are expected to hear the results of an investigation into the company’s culture led by Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general who is now a partner at the law firm Covington and Burling.
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Uber said at a staff meeting on Tuesday that they had fired 20 employees recently over issues raised in another investigation, while dozens of other employees remain on watch or been provided training programs.
However, Mr. Alexander was not among those employees. As investigators followed up from rank-and-file Uber workers about problems at the company, top executives did not mentioned that they knew Mr. Alexander had obtained the records of the Indian woman, according to two of the people familiar with the matter. Both Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive, and Emil Michael, the company’s senior vice president of business, had read and discussed the woman’s medical records with Mr. Alexander at length, according to those people.
Mr. Alexander, who was based in Hong Kong, is a longtime companion of Mr. Michael’s; the two worked together as far back as 15 years ago at the start-up Tellme Networks. Mr. Alexander was also one of Mr. Kalanick’s most trusted lieutenants. The three men once attended a South Korean escort bar together, according to two of people familiar with the medical records matter. That trip prompted a complaint to Uber’s human resources department.
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The actions that led to Mr. Alexander’s termination began in late 2014, when it became public that a woman had accused an Uber driver of raping her after she fall asleep on a ride to her home in Delhi.
Critics condemned Uber over its recruitment practices when it emerged that the driver had previously been detained for months on suspicion of rape in a different case. Uber responded to the episode by introducing increased safety measures in its vehicles, including a kind of panic button for passengers who felt unsafe. Uber eventually settled a lawsuit the woman filed against the company; the driver was convicted of rape.
The company was banned in Delhi after the story broke, putting at risk Uber’s plan to dominate the market in India, a country of more than 1.3 billion people that the company hoped would fuel enormous growth. Uber had also just closed a $1.4 billion round of financing, and was in the middle of talking to other companies about more financing.
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Mr. Alexander believed that the rape charges were part of a plan hatched by Ola, the leading ride-hailing company in India and one of Uber’s largest Asian competitors, according to two of the people familiar with the matter. He spent months in India as Uber established itself there, and conducted his own investigation. He shared his concerns with Mr. Kalanick and Mr. Michael, who were also fixated on the case, according to the two people.
Mr. Kalanick and Mr. Alexander had long telephone conversations about what they believed to be subterfuge on the woman’s part, trying to figure out how to rectify the situation, according to two people familiar with those talks. Mr. Alexander carried the woman’s records, which he believed were at odds with her account, with him. The ban imposed on the company in Delhi added to their suspicions. Uber declined to comment on the firing of Mr. Alexander, and he did not respond to a request for comment. Recode first reported news of his termination.
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For now, Uber employees are awaiting the results of Mr. Holder’s investigation. The company is expected to address his findings at a meeting for all employees on Tuesday.
Via New Your Times