Internal documents now published by the ride-hailing service provider Ubers from the years 2013 to 2017 provide deeper insights into the company's aggressive business practices at the time.

According to media reports based on internal communications on Monday, Uber tried to use clashes between taxi drivers and their chauffeurs for lobbying purposes and blocked computers remotely during official raids in European cities.

More than 124,000 documents such as e-mails and chat messages were leaked to the British newspaper "Guardian".

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and more than 180 journalists from international media, including Le Monde, El País and the Washington Post, were involved in evaluating these so-called Uber files.

In Germany, reporters from NDR, WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung collaborated.

"I think it's worth it"

The documents come from a time when Uber was pursuing aggressive international expansion under co-founder and then-boss Travis Kalanick.

In the early days, the company, which was founded in 2008, also tried to partially establish its US model in Europe, in which private individuals transport passengers in their own cars.

After regulators intervened, Uber gave up the practice, but tensions with the taxi industry and authorities remained high for years.

Since Dara Khosrowshahi took over the top job at Uber in 2017, the company has repeatedly distanced itself from its predecessor's business practices.

The company said in a statement: "We have not and will not condone any past behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our current values.

Instead, we're asking the public to judge us by what we've done over the past five years and what we will do in the years to come."

Among other things, the documents document how Uber organized a large counter-demonstration after protests against the company in France in 2016, with "15,000 drivers" and "50,000 customers", as Kalanick wrote in chat messages published by the "Washington Post".

He therefore downplayed the risk of possible aggressive behavior on the part of the other side: "If we have 50,000 passengers, they will not and cannot do anything." At the same time, he seemed to take risks: "I think it's worth it.

Violence guarantees success.”

"Much of what our boss at the time said almost a decade ago"

Uber manager Jill Hazelbaker wrote to the "Washington Post": "There are many things that our then boss said almost a decade ago that we would not tolerate today." But nobody at Uber was ever happy about violence against a driver .

Kalanick's spokesman also said he never suggested that Uber capitalize on violence against drivers.

According to the reports, the documents also prove the controversial use of two software tools, which has been known for years.

With a name called Greyball, regulators adjusted the display in the Uber app at the location so that no vehicles were displayed.

With a “kill switch”, computers were switched off remotely during a raid on the Uber office in Amsterdam, among other things.

In Germany, according to the report, the FDP politician Otto Fricke coordinated Uber's lobbying campaign.

Fricke was a member of the Bundestag from 2002 to 2013, then worked as a lobbyist and returned to politics and the Bundestag in 2017.

According to internal Uber documents, his political contacts helped push through a change in the Passenger Transport Act in the sense of the driving service provider.

The case of the renowned economist Justus Haucap is also explosive. According to research, he placed a commissioned study and an Uber-friendly newspaper article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in December 2014.

The FAZ explained that they had no knowledge of a possible agreement between Haucap and Uber.