It’s both a senior executive’s life, an ambassador’s, a minister’s, and sometimes even a secret agent’s life. The “Uber Files” offer an unprecedented dive into the daily life of lobbyists in Europe. These thousands of e-mails, minutes of meetings and presentations of influence strategies paint the portrait of shadow actors whose mission is to influence European policies to the advantage of their employer. . Very discreet, very well paid, they jump from Thalys to Eurostar, from hotel to restaurant, taking advantage of all the possibilities offered by their networks.
On reading the documents, this last point appears particularly raw: much more than strategic talent and strength of conviction, it is the contacts, established and skilfully maintained, that allow lobbyists to achieve their ends. At Uber, one of them notes on his agenda the birthday dates of his key contacts to think of sending them a note; another is scrambling to get an internship at Uber for the son of a good contact who sits on the board of a major investment bank.
“Uber Files”, an international investigation
“Uber Files” is an investigation based on thousands of internal Uber documents sent by an anonymous source to the British daily The Guardianand forwarded to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and 42 media partners, including The world.
Emails, presentations, meeting minutes… These 124,000 documents, dated from 2013 to 2017, offer a rare dive into the mysteries of a start-up which was then seeking to establish itself in cities around the world despite a regulatory context. unfavorable. They detail how Uber has used, in France as elsewhere, all the tricks of lobbying to try to change the law to its advantage.
The “Uber Files” also reveal how the Californian group, determined to impose itself by a fait accompli and, if necessary, by operating illegally, has implemented practices deliberately playing with the limits of the law, or which may amount to judicial obstruction of the investigations of which he was the subject.
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This address book is the war chest of lobbyists, which they take on board when they change employers. The most popular targets, those whose direct line is exchanged between colleagues with the help of elevator referrals, are not necessarily leading political figures, but other men and women in the shadows who populate the he antechamber of power: special advisers, deputy chiefs of staff, parliamentary assistants… In Brussels as in Paris, commissioners and ministers change, but their close collaborators often find a similar position. They are the most effective contacts for setting up appointments, obtaining information or simply testing the waters.
All-terrain entryism
The life of “public affairs officials”, modestly titled their functions, is a large turnstile where career, private life and personal commitments mingle happily. So the British Rachel Whetstone, chief lobbyist of Google, who in August 2014 invited the founder of Uber, Travis Kalanick, to a dinner “in the presence of George Osborne”, then British Finance Minister. Ms Whetstone is well acquainted with the Conservative Party, which she and her husband, Steve Hilton, advised; this dinner is also a small boost to a start-up in which Google has just invested more than 258 million dollars, or 196 million euros; but it also allows her to position herself with Uber, by whom she will be poached the following summer.
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