Luminar founder Austin Russell agrees to accept subpoena in bankruptcy case

Luminar founder and former CEO Austin Russell has agreed to accept an electronic subpoena seeking information on his phone related to the company, as part of the lidar maker’s ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, according to a new filing Tuesday.

Russell now has seven days to file a request to quash the subpoena, or object to it, or else he has 14 days to comply, according to the filing.

The agreement comes two weeks after Luminar’s attorney accused Russell of avoiding a subpoena by keeping process servers at the gate of his Florida mansion. Russell argued that he was not prepared to hand over his phone until he received assurances from Luminar that his personal information would be protected; Tuesday’s filing shows that the two sides agreed to outline specific steps on how to handle this information.

Luminar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December after losing major contracts with customers such as Volvo and Mercedes-Benz, as well as increasing competition from lidar companies in China.

Luminar reached an agreement last week with a company called Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI) to sell its lidar assets for $22 million. (Luminar is also trying to sell its semiconductor division to QCI for $110 million.) Luminar has scheduled an auction for the end of this month in an effort to get bids that might beat QCI’s bid.

Russell tried to buy Luminar in October, months after he abruptly resigned as CEO due to an ethics investigation, but before the company filed for bankruptcy. Representatives for his new venture, Russell AI Labs, told TechCrunch that he is still interested in making a bid for Luminar’s lidar assets, but a formal bid has not yet been made.

Luminar has been seeking information from Russell since his resignation as it decides whether to take legal action against him. The founder has already handed over several computers but kept his phone due to privacy concerns. (Luminar originally claimed it was seeking two phones from Russell, one provided by the company and one personal. Russell has since said in court documents that he only had one phone during his time at Luminar.)