Lawyers for failed transport company GoCatch have claimed a landmark admission from Uber that it knowingly acted illegally when launching its UberX ridesharing service in Australia, accusing the tech giant of making “reality defying” claims that it had not sought to injure its fast-growing rival.

On the opening day of a Victorian Supreme Court case where GoCatch’s founders and investors are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from Uber, for deliberately scuttling its operations, evidence was presented that Uber’s global bosses approved the use of spyware, developed in Sydney for interfering with rivals’ operations.