ByteDance Whistleblower Abused Judicial Process, Faked Evidence

A ByteDance Inc. whistleblower suing the Chinese tech conglomerate for wrongful firing engaged in bad faith conduct, abused the judicial system, and fabricated a key witness in the case, a San Francisco federal judge ruled Thursday.

Yintao “Roger” Yu, former head of US engineering for the TikTok Inc. parent, also committed perjury in his deposition by lying about whether he signed key documents in the case, Judge Susan Illston said in a sanctions order against Yu.

“Yu’s obstructive and mendacious conduct has caused delay, required additional motion practice, and vexatiously multiplied these proceedings,” the judge said. She pointed to a multi-hour sanctions hearing last month where Yu refused to answer any questions about case, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Illston granted ByteDance’s motion for sanctions and entered a judgment in favor of the company, requiring Yu to arbitrate his firing dispute with a private mediator.

The judge also denied Yu’s attempt to voluntarily drop the suit, which he filed soon after ByteDance presented evidence of his perjury and witness fabrication.

“This Court has the inherent power to investigate whether a party has abused the judicial process or otherwise committed a fraud upon the court,” Illston said. “It would be a further abuse of the judicial process to allow a party who has committed egregious litigation misconduct to avoid sanctions by voluntarily dismissing his case or similar gamesmanship.”

Attorneys for both parties didn’t immediately return requests for comment about the ruling.

Yu originally sued ByteDance for wrongful termination in California state court, alleging he was fired because he revealed the company’s widespread intellectual property theft and the Chinese Communist Party’s influence on the TikTok app.

He said TikTok suppressed content about pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong at the behest of the CCP, which had a “superuser” credential to access all ByteDance data.

ByteDance argued that Yu signed employment documents when he was hired in 2017 that required him to arbitrate employment disputes with the company, but Yu denied ever signing the arbitration agreements, saying the company forged his signatures.

The parties brought the dispute over the signed agreements before Illston on the US District Court for the Northern District of California. She ordered the case to proceed to trial before ByteDance filed the sanctions motion.

The company alleged that Yu faked an anonymous witness—later revealed to be a ByteDance HR employee—who made a written declaration stating that she observed Yu signing a key document that would have helped his case.

At the sanctions hearing, the HR employee testified that she never wrote the declaration or saw him signing the document, which Illston said was credible. “Yu’s litigation behavior further supports the conclusion that he fabricated that declaration,” the judge said.

Delahunty & Edelman LLP and Nassiri & Jung LLP represent Yu. Greenberg Traurig LLP represents ByteDance.

The case is Yu v. ByteDance Inc., N.D. Cal., No. 3:23-cv-04910, 12/12/24.