Uber whistleblower Mark MacGann is threatening to withdraw from a European Parliament hearing on the Uber Files if he has to share a stage with the ride-sharing company.
The Signals Network, a non-profit organization, which has been supporting MacGann since he went public about Uber’s lobbying practices, has told the chair of the Parliament’s Employment Committee, that he cannot attend the October 25 event “if the committee insists on the format currently proposed,” according to a letter from the network’s legal director Jennifer Gibson seen by POLITICO.
“The approach your committee is insisting on not only puts Mr. MacGann at further legal risk, but it also exposes him to additional, unnecessary, trauma and sends a troubling signal that the European Parliament does not in fact value, or protect whistleblowers,” Gibson writes.
Lawmakers will look into Uber’s lobbying practices from 2013 to 2017, revealed in a trove of documents leaked by MacGann in July.
The Employment Committee has invited five speakers. Earlier this week, both Uber’s Director of EU Public Policy Zuzana Púčiková and Jobs Commissioner Nicolas Schmit confirmed their attendance. The two other speakers will be Andreea Nastase, an assistant professor at Maastricht University, and Brahim Ben Ali, a former Uber driver and activist, according to a draft program seen by POLITICO.
Suggestions have been made to alter the set-up of the meeting and to separate MacGann’s keynote speech from comments by other panellists.
The Signals Network is backed, among others, by Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire tech critic who founded eBay who also offered financial support to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.
