Fresh from getting into trouble over an ice cream giveaway, Uber Technologies Inc. has added to its nearly uninterrupted run of bad news with a new scandal that allegedly involves bribing foreign officials.

It may be easy to make fun of the seemingly never–ending stream of negative publicity, but this time around Uber may be in serious legal trouble. The Department of Justice investigating whether the company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when it managed to acquire, then publish, the medical records of an Indian woman who accused an Uber driver of raping her in 2014.

According to reports, some current and former employees claim that bribes were involved in obtaining the woman’s medical records. At the time, Uber publicly stated that the alleged rape was “an abhorrent crime” and that its “thoughts remain with the victim who has shown tremendous courage under the circumstances.” But a report by Bloomberg said top Uber executives, including former Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick, privately questioned whether the rape happened and whether it had been a setup by Uber’s largest competitor in India.

The foreign bribery investigation comes as the troubled company appointed outgoing Expedia Inc. head Dara Khosrowshahi as its new CEO on Sunday. The former Expedia CEO accepted the position Tuesday.

The medical record bribery scandal will be Khosrowshahi’s first serious challenge, but it’s far from the only one. Among a list of problems, the other major challenge Khosrowshahi will face is Uber’s ongoing legal case against Waymo Inc. over the alleged theft of intellectual property. Despite firing former self-driving car unit head Anthony Levandowski, the court case remains ongoing. Should Waymo, the company formerly known as Google’s self-driving car division, be successful in its case, Uber may be forced to abandon its own self-driving car division.

That may not seem on the surface to a be a serious problem, but given that, according to some, the still unprofitable company is relying on the deployment of its own self-driving cars in the future to justify its valuation, it could turn out to be a serious blow.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons