Lidar maker Luminar said its founder and former CEO Austin Russell continues to evade requests for information, including subpoenas, necessary to determine whether legal action should be taken against him.
The company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late December, said in an emergency filing late last week that it had been trying to retrieve company-owned devices from Mr. Russell since he resigned in May. Luminar has recovered six computers, but is still searching for digital copies of Russell’s company-issued phone and his personal phone.
Luminar’s lawyers also said in the filing that Russell and his personal employees repeatedly misled legal representatives about the company’s founder’s location while on vacation. They are asking the court for permission to serve Russell by mail or email instead. A lawyer for Luminar declined further comment.
In an email attached to his application, Russell claimed to be cooperative and seeking assurances from Luminar that all personal data on his devices would be protected.
“The company has refused and will instead be subject to court-established data handling protection processes,” Russell’s attorney, Leonard Shulman, told TechCrunch in a statement.
The emergency filing is one of the first major developments in a fast-moving bankruptcy case in which Luminar is looking to sell two major parts of its business. The company is seeking court approval for an already-agreed deal to sell its semiconductor subsidiary to Quantum Computing Corp., and has set a Jan. 9 bid deadline for its lidar division.
Russell, through his new business, Russell AI Labs, attempted to acquire Luminar before the company filed for Chapter 11 and announced plans to bid into bankruptcy. “As it relates to Luminar, we remain focused on what’s important: Russell AI Labs’ efforts to rebuild the company and deliver value to our stakeholders,” Schulman said.
tech crunch event
san francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
Lawyers for Luminar said in a filing that they began collecting information from Mr. Russell in May, shortly after he abruptly resigned following a “corporate conduct and ethics investigation” by the board’s audit committee. The company was considering potential legal claims against Mr. Russell “in connection with the audit committee investigation and personal loans made by Mr. Russell,” the filing said. But Luminar said those efforts were unsuccessful and Russell was not cooperative.
On November 12, Luminar’s board of directors established a special investigation committee and hired the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges to further investigate “certain acts, omissions, transactions and potential claims and causes of action involving or relating to certain current and former directors and officers of Luminar.”
A month later, just before the bankruptcy, Weil’s lawyers contacted McDermott, Will & Schulte, the law firm that had previously represented Russell. Weil’s lawyers asked about Mr. Russell’s collection of digital copies (or “images”) of laptop and desktop computers, company-issued cell phones and personal cell phones provided by Luminar.
Weil’s lawyers spent a week confirming whether Mr. McDermott would represent Mr. Russell in the matter before the task force, but on Dec. 19 it was determined that Mr. McDermott would not be representing Mr. Russell. Weil’s attorney instead tried to contact Russell directly.
Russell first responded on Christmas Eve, according to the filing. Although he ultimately allowed Mr. McDermott to hand over the computer, which the company had kept since his resignation, emails attached to the emergency filing revealed that the founder repeatedly sought assurances that Mr. Luminar’s lawyers would not search his cellphone’s personal data.
“While I have offered direct cooperation and prompt action, even while on vacation, I am advised that further deliberation on this matter is not productive unless this unique fundamental protection can be confirmed,” Russell said in an email on New Year’s Eve.
Luminar representatives arranged for a forensic examiner to appear at Mr. Russell’s Florida residence on New Year’s Day. But the engineer was rejected by Russell’s security team, which Luminar’s lawyers said was “unacceptable.”
Mr Russell claimed that a technician was sent to his home “unannounced” on the morning of his holiday “while I was sleeping” and reiterated his desire to protect the privacy of his personal data. Luminar’s lawyers responded: “We have repeatedly confirmed that we do not intend to review any documents that are not related to Luminar.” Russell responded on January 2:[a]”The portrayal that I was uncooperative is completely inaccurate,” he said, accusing his lawyer of “verbal gymnastics.”
Mr. Luminar’s lawyers instead claimed that they tried to subpoena this information to Mr. Russell, but their process server was similarly denied by the security team. They also claim that members of the security team lied about Mr. Russell’s presence at the Florida mansion.
“Will we be able to serve Austin again today? Someone will need to serve him well. He intends to avoid serving as much as possible,” one Weil attorney wrote in an email on New Year’s Eve. “In fact, the last time your person tried, he was in the house and the security guard just lied for him.”
Source link
