Alphabet's self-driving car developing company Waymo sued Uber and its self-driving truck company Otto for theft of technology today. Waymo claims that Otto head Anthony Levandowski, a former Waymo employee, downloaded more than 14,000 confidential and proprietary design files before he quit Waymo. He also wiped and reformatted his then company laptop to erase any forensic fingerprints, Waymo added.

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Waymo, the Alphabet-owned self-driving company that began life as Google's self-driving car project, says that Uber "misappropriated" its trade secrets and infringed upon its held patents. Specifically, Waymo has found evidence that Otto and Uber have been using elements of its self-driving tech related to its in-house LiDAR circuit board design which the company unveiled earlier this year. Waymo says it discovered this chain of events when a supplier accidentally copied it on emails to Uber and Otto which contained a circuit board design from the company that looked remarkably like its own.

According to Waymo, the theft took place in December 2015, just prior to Levandowski leaving and starting his own company, which would become Otto in January 2016. The complaint says that Levandowski was already setting up his venture prior to leaving the Alphabet-owned operation. The complaint also accuses other former Waymo employees who left the ride-sharing company to join what would become Otto of downloading more of its trade secrets, including supplier lists and technical documents.

The Waymo suit says that Otto's in-house development of its own LiDAR tech was important to its acquisition by Uber, further adding that Levandowski and Otto gained more than half-a-billion dollars directly via the theft.

This is a huge setback for Uber, says TechCrunch, at a time when it is already facing a lot of internal and external trouble related to alleged sexual harassment experienced by a former employee and made public earlier this week.