Lyft officials settle lawsuit over sexual assaults by drivers

Lyft will enforce several security and governance reforms to resolve a shareholder lawsuit accusing the scurry-sharing company’s officers and directors of no longer doing ample to forestall drivers from sexually and physically assaulting passengers.

A preliminary settlement changed into as soon as filed on Tuesday night time in the Oakland, California, federal court, and requires a resolve’s approval.

Lyft agreed to enhance passenger consciousness of the “Alert 911 Silently” feature on its app for reporting misconduct, and construct it simpler to chronicle concerns 24/7 to a are residing human. It moreover mentioned it has moreover improved training and its code of industry behavior and ethics.

The changes would supreme at the least three years. Officers and directors would pay no money to the company, and their insurers would pay $700,000 to quilt the plaintiffs’ legal costs.

Shareholders claimed that Lyft’s recognition suffered from the company’s insufficient training and background assessments for drivers, alongside side those with histories of sexual misconduct.

They moreover mentioned Lyft concealed the shortfalls before its March 2019 initial public offering, and moreover concealed defects in its digital bikes that ended in tons of accidents.

Lyft officials denied wrongdoing in agreeing to resolve.

In a commentary, the San Francisco-essentially essentially based company mentioned it settled “completely to steer obvious of the disruption and cost of litigation.”

Lyft has mentioned the lawsuit changed into as soon as the supreme shareholder case coming up from the IPO. Thru Tuesday, Lyft’s part designate had fallen 83 per cent for the reason that offering.

Many scurry-part passengers maintain moreover accused Uber drivers of sexual assault.

Greater than 300 court cases in opposition to Uber alleging such behavior were mixed steady into a federal class motion pending in San Francisco. The gathering of plaintiffs could per chance per chance reach the thousands.

The case is In re Lyft Inc Derivative Litigation, U.S. District Courtroom, Northern District of California No. 20-09257.