Apple faces lawsuits in Europe over slowing down older iPhones

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Euroconsumers, the advocacy group bringing the motion, mentioned in an announcement Wednesday that the class-action lawsuits cowl as much as 2 million iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S and 6S Plus gadgets in Belgium, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

Apple has confronted public backlash and authorized motion all over the world after it admitted in 2017 that software program updates designed to forestall the batteries in older iPhones from crashing additionally slowed the gadgets down.
The Euroconsumers instances mirror a category motion lawsuit in opposition to Apple in america that led to a proposed settlement of $500 million in March. Final month, Apple paid $113 million to settle an investigation into the matter by 34 American states, together with California and Arizona.

“We’re being requested to be handled with the identical equity and respect as US shoppers,” head of coverage and enforcement at Euroconsumers, Els Bruggeman informed CNN Enterprise.

The group mentioned that makes an attempt to resolve the difficulty with Apple out of court docket have been unsuccessful. It’s searching for compensation of €60 ($72.30) on common for every client. If the lawsuits succeed, they might price Apple €180 million ($217 million) in whole, based mostly on Euroconsumers estimates of the variety of gadgets affected.

“Customers are more and more upset by merchandise carrying out too rapidly, the iPhone 6 fashions being a really concrete instance of that,” Bruggeman mentioned in an announcement.

Following an outcry by disgruntled iPhone customers, Apple apologized and made battery replacements cheaper, but it surely has been accused in earlier lawsuits and within the present case of intentionally slowing telephones to encourage customers to purchase new ones, a follow the corporate denies.

“Now we have by no means — and would by no means — do something to deliberately shorten the lifetime of any Apple product or degrade the person expertise to drive buyer upgrades,” Apple mentioned in an announcement in response to the brand new lawsuits.

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Instances will probably be filed Wednesday by Euroconsumers’ related organizations in Belgium and Spain. The group says it expects to comply with these with filings in Italy and Portugal within the coming weeks.

Italy’s antitrust authority fined Apple €10 million ($12 million) in 2018 after discovering it had misled shoppers into putting in the software program updates on older iPhones with out warning them concerning the impact on the machine’s efficiency. In Could, an administrative court docket in Italy confirmed the sanction after Apple lodged an enchantment.

That call established the authorized foundation for the category motion lawsuits, Bruggeman mentioned.

“Customers do not settle for this sort of conduct anymore,” she added. “Not solely does it trigger frustration and monetary hurt, from an environmental perspective additionally it is completely irresponsible.”

—- Rob McLean contributed reporting.

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