The decision came down following an arbitration case between Anthony Levandowski and the tech giant. Levandowski filed for bankruptcy protection, claiming he had up to US$100 million in personal assets. (The New York Times)

Talking point: Levandowski worked on self-driving cars at Google for years before leaving in 2016 to establish an autonomous-vehicle startup, Otto, eventually selling Otto to Uber for over US$600 million and joining that company. But in 2017, Waymo, a self-driving car company spun out of Google, sued Uber and Levandowski for stealing trade secrets. That same year, Uber fired Levandowski for not cooperating with the investigation. The two firms settled, with Uber paying Waymo US$245 million in stock. Meanwhile, last August, federal prosecutors charged Levandowski with stealing trade secrets from Google. An arbitration panel ruled in favour of Google that December, saying Levandowski and his colleague, Lior Ron, had breached an agreement with the company that they would not poach employees. This recent ruling, from a San Francisco County court, confirms that decision.