San Francisco — Shortly after taking over Uber Technologies in September, Dara Khosrowshahi told employees to brace for a painful six months. US officials are looking into possible bribes, illicit software, questionable pricing schemes and theft of a competitor’s intellectual property. The very attributes that, for years, set the company on a rocket-ship trajectory — a tendency to ignore rules, to compete with a mix of ferocity and paranoia — have unleashed forces that are now dragging Uber back to down to earth. Uber faces at least five criminal probes from the US Justice Department — two more than previously reported. Bloomberg has learned that authorities are asking questions about whether Uber violated price-transparency laws, and officials are separately looking into the company’s role in the alleged theft of schematics and other documents outlining Alphabet’s autonomous-driving technology. Uber is also defending itself against dozens of civil suits, including one brought by Al...
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