Google has accused its former driverless-car executive Anthony Levandowski of slyly developing a competing company for more than three years before he left the Internet giant and later sold the business to Uber Technologies.

Levandowski earned more than US$120 million (A$158 million) at Alphabet’s Google “for his supposed contributions” to develop the company’s self-driving car program, now called Waymo, according to a Google suit.

An alleged scheme by Levandowski and other former Google employees to steal technology is at the centre of a seven-week-old battle between Uber and Waymo in the US District Court in San Francisco.

Waymo sued Uber in February for allegedly stealing trade secrets.