Uber's legal troubles just got a whole lot worse

In a major legal setback for Uber, a federal judge has denied the ride services company's request to move to arbitration a trade secrets theft lawsuit filed by Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car unit. The judge overseeing the case also referred it to federal prosecutors to determine if criminal charges are warranted. The two companies are in a legal battle after Waymo filed a lawsuit on February alleging that a key engineer from Uber had stolen trade secrets and intellectual property it had developed related to lidar, the radar-like sensors that self-driving cars use to navigate.