Pension Funds Sue Uber Board, Claim Execs Hid 400,000 Sexual Assault Reports While Collecting Safety Bonuses

Three public pension funds filed a lawsuit against Uber's top executives and board of directors this week, accusing them of hiding the real scale of sexual assault reports on the platform for years while collecting bonuses tied to safety performance.

The Louisiana Sheriffs' Pension & Relief Fund, Boynton Beach General Employees' Pension Plan and Steamfitters Local 449 Pension Fund filed the suit on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, according to Forbes.

The complaint names CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, board chair Ronald Sugar, eight other current directors, Uber's president and two former chief financial officers as defendants.

The core allegation: Uber publicly disclosed only 12,522 accounts of "serious sexual assault" from 2017 to 2022. But according to the lawsuit, the company's own internal data showed 400,181 total reports of sexual assault or misconduct during that same window.

What the Lawsuit Claims Uber Knew and Didn't Do

The suit alleges Uber built the tools that could have caught dangerous drivers earlier and simply didn't deploy them fast enough, or at all.

According to the complaint, Uber coded a piece of software back in 2017 that used 43 different predictors, things like prior "creepy driver" complaints, a driver's safety incident history, and other data points, to forecast with 51% certainty when a sexual assault might occur.

Uber allegedly didn't roll out that tool until 2022. And even after rollout, the lawsuit claims, the company kept dispatching trips it had already flagged as high-risk without warning the rider.

The complaint also alleges Uber considered installing in-car cameras, running more rigorous background checks, and improving driver training, but either delayed or scrapped those measures.

On top of the operational claims, the pension funds allege Uber's 2024, 2025 and 2026 annual proxy filings contained false statements about how closely the board was actually overseeing safety issues.

The Quote at the Center of the Case

The complaint cites a statement allegedly made by Uber's own head of safety, that passengers "ride Uber at their own risk." The pension funds are using that line as evidence executives understood the platform carried real danger, even as they told shareholders otherwise.

This is a civil complaint, not a verdict. No court has ruled on any of these claims. Forbes reported it reached out to Uber for comment.

What the Funds Are Asking For

This is a derivative shareholder lawsuit, meaning the pension funds are suing on behalf of Uber itself, arguing the directors breached their fiduciary duty to the company. The suit seeks to have the court find that Uber's current and former executives breached those duties and asks that they be forced to repay what the plaintiffs describe as millions of dollars in bonuses tied to safety metrics.

The logic: if the board was collecting bonuses for safety performance while allegedly hiding the true numbers, they profited off a misleading picture.

Not the First Such Suit

This isn't the first shareholder derivative suit against Uber's board in recent weeks. According to Forbes, shareholders led by the Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit filed a similar action in the same San Francisco federal court in June, accusing directors of ignoring repeated warnings about driver abuse and the treatment of disabled passengers. That complaint described Uber as "a serial compliance offender" whose reputation had been "irredeemably damaged" by negative press coverage. Uber said at the time that the Detroit suit was based on "misleading, false narratives."

What's Still Unproven

Everything above comes from the plaintiffs' complaint. Allegations in a lawsuit are not findings of fact. Uber has not yet had a public response entered into the court record, and Forbes reported it had reached out to the company for comment.

The distinction between the 400,181 total reports cited in the new suit and the 12,522 "serious sexual assault" figure Uber disclosed publicly is something the lawsuit will have to prove in court. The gap between total reports and "serious" categorized assaults is exactly the kind of definitional fight that will likely dominate discovery.

The case now moves toward Uber filing a response in the Northern District of California. Whether the court allows the derivative claims to proceed, or dismisses them at an early stage, will determine if Khosrowshahi and the board face depositions over what they knew and when.