Uber has fired 20 employees in recent months, the company said at a staff meeting Tuesday, as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the climate and culture at the popular ride-hailing service.

The report of the firings came from an attorney at the Perkins Coie law firm, which Uber hired to assist in a broader sexual harassment investigation at the company and which made a presentation at the company's weekly staff meeting Tuesday (US time). The firings, the company confirmed Tuesday afternoon, were for sexual harassment, discrimination, unprofessional behaviour, retaliation, bullying and physical safety -- most but not all in the company's San Francisco headquarters.

The company has faced a series of allegations of misconduct this year, including a criminal investigation by the Justice Department for using software to trick regulators and avoid government scrutiny. Taken together, the probes have tarnished the image of one of Silicon Valley's most aggressive and widely emulated companies and its embattled chief executive, Travis Kalanick.

Bloomberg was the first to report the firings Tuesday. The person who initially confirmed the news for The Washington Post was familiar with Uber's action and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter not yet announced publicly by the company.

The firings were among the first visible results of an investigation led by former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr., who was hired by Kalanick after reports of widespread sexual harassment within the company, triggered by a blog post by former employee Susan Fowler in February. That prompted a barrage of criticism over sexual harassment and a discriminatory work environment.

In the post, Fowler, a site-reliability engineer, detailed a horrifying year in which her sexual harassment claims were ignored by Uber's human resources department. The post went viral and prompted other women to speak out about Uber's rule-breaking "bro culture." One person who later chimed in was Kalanick's ex-girlfriend, who said she felt uncomfortable when executives including Kalanick went to an escort bar during a business trip in South Korea in 2014.

Holder's investigation, which has produced a draft report on Uber's workplace culture that has not been publicly released, led to the discovery of specific cases of alleged sexual harassment and other professional misconduct. Those cases were referred to Perkins Coie to further investigate and resolve, leading to the firings outlined in Tuesday's staff meeting.

No names of fired employees or details of the alleged harassment have publicly emerged. Overall Perkins Coie reviewed 215 claims of alleged misconduct, leading to the 20 firings. Previous news reports in The Washington Post and elsewhere, said that the number of firings exceeded 20, but the company said Tuesday afternoon that the number was exactly 20.

The firings represent Uber's latest effort to quell a series of escalating controversies that have shaken the 8-year-old company to its core, analysts said. In addition to sexual harassment, Uber is facing a litany of issues, including a slew of executive departures, the federal criminal investigation over potentially deceiving law enforcement and an admission that it underpaid tens of thousands of drivers.

The company is also in the midst of a major trade secrets lawsuit against Google that threatens its self-driving car ambitions. In addition, Kalanick recently suffered personal tragedy when his mother was killed and his father seriously injured in a boating accident.

The Washington Post