Following a complaint from an iPhone purchaser in Brazil, a regional court has ordered Apple to pay compensation. According to the court’s decision, Apple must compensate the impacted iPhone consumer with 5,000 Brazilian reals ($1,080 at today’s exchange rates).
In addition, a charge of 1% has been added for each month since the court summons started, and a fine of around $21 has been added for every day that the corporation fails to comply with the orders has been put in place. Apple will also provide the buyer with a charger.
A court ruling deems the phone’s charging adaptor to be a necessity. Apple’s no-charger policy was deemed “abusive” to consumer rights by the court, who ruled in favour of the plaintiff. Because Apple doesn’t provide an in-box charger, the court took issue with their reasoning for doing so.
Apple’s environmental worries are unwarranted, according to Goiânia 6th Special Civil Court Judge Vanderlei Caires Pinheiro. The reason for this is because the corporation continues to produce and sell charging adapters. There are two different charging options available from Apple right now: the standard USB-C brick and the MagSafe puck.
The charging brick has been the subject of a number of legal disputes in the past.
This isn’t the first time Apple’s no-charging policy in Brazil has been the target of criticism or retaliation. For failing to include a charger with the iPhone 12 retail box, Procon-SP, a consumer protection agency located in Sao Paulo, imposed a punishment of around $2 million.
Apple was hit with a fee of about $2 million in October for repeating the infraction with the iPhone 13 series phones a few months after the first punishment. Additionally, Procon-SP has requested that Apple provide iPhone 12 devices with chargers to the state of Saô Paulo.
Consumer Protection Code is a topic that comes up in Apple’s recent legal battle, and the court’s ruling makes it plain that charging customers for a charger is excessive when it may be provided as a bundled accessory, which has long been standard practise in the business.
Despite this, Apple has reaped substantial commercial rewards by removing the in-box charger from its products. By excluding chargers and earbuds from the retail bundle, the corporation is said to have saved $6 billion. The lower size of the package, in addition to saving Apple money on shipping and logistical costs, also helped.
Due to the fact that just one person filed a legal complaint against the firm, Apple will only have to pay a little over $1,000 in its latest legal battle. To have the lawsuit awarded class-action status, the corporation would have been compelled to pay compensation to all of the impacted customers who took part in litigation.
In October of last year, five students from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology and Donghua University filed a class-action complaint against Apple over its no-charger policy. With Apple’s antitrust lobbying spending set for a record high in 2022, it’s no surprise that the corporation would devote all of its resources to avoiding a situation like this.