Lidar-maker Luminar says its founder and former CEO Austin Russell has been evading requests for information — including a subpoena — that the company needs in order to decide whether it should take legal action against him.
The company, which entered the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process in late December, said in an emergency filing over the weekend that it has been trying to reclaim company-owned devices from Russell since his resignation in May. While it has recovered six computers, Luminar is still seeking Russell’s company-issued phone and a digital copy of his personal phone.
Luminar’s lawyers also wrote in the filing that Russell and his own personal employees repeatedly misled legal representatives about the founder’s location over the holidays. They’re asking the court for permission to instead serve Russell by mail or email. A lawyer for Luminar declined to comment further.
In emails attached to the filing, Russell claimed he was being cooperative and has been trying to get assurances from Luminar that any personal data from his devices will be protected.
“The company declined, so we will follow the court-established process for data handling protections instead,” Leonard Shulman, an attorney for Russell, told TechCrunch in a statement.
The emergency filing is one of the first major twists in a fast-moving bankruptcy case that involves Luminar trying to sell the two main parts of its business. The company is seeking court approval of an already-reached agreement to sell its semiconductor subsidiary to a company called Quantum Computing, Inc., and has established a January 9 deadline for bids on its lidar division.
Russell, through his new venture Russell AI Labs, tried to buy Luminar before the Chapter 11 filing and has expressed plans to make a bid in the bankruptcy process. “As it relates to Luminar, our focus remains on what matters: Russell AI Labs’ bid to rebuild the company and bring value to its stakeholders,” Shulman said.
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Lawyers for Luminar said in the filing that it began hunting for information from Russell in May, just after he abruptly resigned following a “code of business conduct and ethics inquiry” performed by the board’s audit committee. The company was evaluating whether it may have potential legal claims against him “relating to the Audit Committee inquiry and personal loans taken by Mr. Russell,” according to the filing. But Luminar said those efforts were unsuccessful and Russell was not cooperative.
On November 12, Luminar’s board of directors established a Special Investigation Committee and hired law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges to further investigate “certain acts, omissions, transactions and potential claims and causes of action involving or related to certain current and former directors and officers of Luminar.”
One month later, just before the bankruptcy, lawyers for Weil contacted the law firm of McDermott Will & Schulte, which had previously represented Russell. The Weil lawyers asked about collecting Russell’s Luminar-provided laptop and desktop computers, along with his company-issued phone and a digital copy (or “image”) of his personal phone.
The lawyers from Weil spent a week trying to confirm whether McDermott would represent Russell in the matter of the Special Investigation Committee, only to find out on December 19 that it would not. The Weil lawyers tried contacting Russell directly instead.
Russell responded for the first time on Christmas Eve, according to the filing. He eventually authorized McDermott to turn over the computers (which the firm had kept in its possession since his resignation), but the founder repeatedly asked for guarantees that Luminar’s lawyers would not search through personal data on his phones, emails attached to the emergency filing show.
“I have offered direct cooperation as well as prompt action, even through the holidays – but if this singular basic protection cannot be confirmed, I am advised further deliberations on this matter will not be productive,” Russell wrote in an email on New Year’s Eve.
Representatives for Luminar arranged to have a forensic examiner appear at Russell’s mansion in Florida on New Year’s Day. But the technician was turned away by Russell’s security team, which a lawyer for Luminar called “unacceptable.”
Russell claimed the technician was sent to his home “unannounced” on the holiday morning “when I was asleep,” and reiterated his desire to protect the privacy of his personal data. A lawyer for Luminar responded that they had “repeatedly confirmed that we have no intention of looking at any documents beyond those that are Luminar-related.” Russell replied on January 2 that “[a]ny characterization that I have been uncooperative is wholly inaccurate” and accused the lawyers of “word gymnastics.”
Luminar’s lawyers tried instead to subpoena this information from Russell but claim their process servers were similarly turned away by his security team. They also claim those security team members lied about Russell’s presence at his Florida residence.
“Can we try to serve Austin again today? We’re going to need someone dogged. He is going to evade service as long as possible,” one of the Weil lawyers wrote in an email on New Year’s Eve. “In fact, he was home when your person tried last time and the guard simply lied for him.”
