I'm sure the criminal complaint coming from some US Attorney will reveal that somebody was cashing out in private markets. This is no different than a boiler room.
With regard to stock market valuation, what humans might consider values is reversed. Stock market speculators think (or are designed to think, in the case of software agents) like sharks, not community members or citizens or team members. The equation is 'feed or die' and value is intentionally the only factor.
The common denominator of all these Uber behaviors is this: aggressive or even psychotic competitiveness, beyond any conceivable rule or law. w.r.t their stock valuation this is virtue signaling. For this behavior not to benefit them, they have to not only LOSE the lawsuit in question but also have it damage them more than they gained in 'appearance of psychotic competitiveness'.
That's possible, but it's really important to understand the virtue signalling aspect. If the behavior persuades a bunch of amoral stock speculators that Uber is their kind of company it can directly translate into capital valuation that can in turn be spent on lawyers for trying to win the legal cases.
And since the value proposition here is establishing a giant multinational corporation that ignores any and all laws, documenting additional laws or rules broken only underscores the value proposition.
Virtue signalling… in Hell. (literally!)
What the OP suggests is that the risk/reward ratio for such activities is high. The whole point of doing these activities is that they have a great reward with a small risk of being caught. If the risk of getting caught is high, and the reward is low then what's the point of doing such activities.
Very few companies or things are that unique in fundamental ways. When everyone accepts that the norms, rules, or laws don't apply to someone or something, people are temporarily accepting that those things are being broken. There is always a reckoning.
Look in this very thread. A poster says they disagree with my position, because Uber is a unique animal that is "psychotically competitve". WTF does that mean? A: Uber thinks that no rules apply to them.