The woman who was allegedly raped in Delhi by a driver contracted by US-based cab booking service Uber, has instructed one of New York’s top litigators Douglas Wigdor in a potential negligence action, reported The Guardian.

Wigdor told The Guardian that had met “extensively” with the alleged victim and her family in Delhi, and thought that a substantial body of US case law suggested that US courts would accept jurisdiction in a negligence action against the company that is managed from the US The criminal rape trial against the driver is currently ongoing in Delhi, with the woman having yesterday identified the driver in court (see below).

Wigdor has earlier brokered a rumoured $6m settlement against Dominique Strauss-Kahn over his alleged assault of a hotel maid and a later-settled $1.4bn sexual harassment class action against investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

IANS reports that the woman executive allegedly raped by Uber taxi driver Shiv Kumar Yadav identified him as the rapist during the recording of her statement in the trial which began Thursday, according to sources.

Testifying as a prosecution witness in the case, the victim told Additional Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja that she was raped by the cab driver Dec 5 last year. The victim’s statement was recorded in in-camera.

According to court sources, the victim identified the accused and pointed that he has raped her. The sources further added that woman repeated the same facts as she mentioned before a magistrate during recording of her statement Dec 8 last year.

“She told the court that the accused had threatened and slapped her while committing rape upon her,” the sources said, adding she had also deposed that she felt sleepy after taking the cab and when she woke up, she found that the cab had been stopped in an isolated area and therupon the crime was committed.

The victim will be cross-examined by the defence counsel Friday.

The court Tuesday framed charges under sections 376(2)(m) (while committing rape causing grievous bodily harm or endangering life of a woman), 366 (kidnapping or abducting woman), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code against Yadav.

The trial is being conducted on a day-to-day basis.

Yadav, 32, allegedly raped the woman in the cab she hired to head back home in north Delhi’s Inderlok area. In the over 100-page charge sheet, which was filed Dec 24, the police cited 44 prosecution witnesses in support of its case as well as relying on forensic evidence and a route map of the cab.