Uber settles with Waymo over theft claims

Uber is paying $US245 million ($A343 million) to Google's self-driving car spin-off to end a legal brawl over trade secrets.

The settlement was announced on Friday just before the fifth day of testimony was about to begin at a jury trial in San Francisco federal court.

Waymo sued Uber last year, saying one of its engineers who became chief of Uber's self-driving car project took with him thousands of confidential documents.

The lawsuit cost Uber precious time: it fired its self-driving chief after Waymo sued and is well behind on its plans to deploy fleets of autonomous cars.

The settlement allows Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to put another scandal behind the company after the tumultuous leadership of the firm by Travis Kalanick, who testified on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In the deal, Waymo gets a 0.34 per cent stake in Uber and an agreement that Waymo confidential information will not be used in Uber technology.

Waymo had initially sought at least $US1 billion and wanted an independent monitor to ensure Uber did not use Waymo technology.

Khosrowshahi expressed "regret" for Uber's actions.

"While we do not believe that any trade secrets made their way from Waymo to Uber, nor do we believe that Uber has used any of Waymo's proprietary information in its self-driving technology, we are taking steps with Waymo to ensure our Lidar (range sensors) and software represents just our good work," he said on Friday.

Waymo's lawsuit said Anthony Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 files in December 2015 before he went to work at Uber in 2016.

The US Justice Department is conducting a separate investigation into the trade secrets.

Law enforcement has not charged anyone with their theft and Levandowski was not a defendant in the Waymo case.