In Brazil, the court awarded Apple 20 million USD on Thursday. fine for selling its iPhone smartphones without chargers, a practice the judge called an abusive practice that forces customers to buy an additional product.
The Brazilian Ministry of Justice has already awarded the company almost 2.5 million USD in September. fine for selling phones without chargers and banned the company from selling the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 phone models without them.
The new fine is 100 million. real, awarded by a Sao Paulo civil court judge as damages in a lawsuit filed by the Brazilian Consumer Association.
in 2020 In October, Apple stopped bundling new iPhones with chargers, saying it wanted to help reduce electronics waste.
But as Judge Caramuru Afonso Francisco wrote in the decision, the move actually “requires consumers to purchase a second product in order for the first one to work.”
The judge ordered the California company to provide chargers to all Brazilian consumers who purchased the iPhone 12 or iPhone 13 models in the past two years, and to include the chargers with all new purchases.
Last week, the European Parliament passed a law that would require all smartphones, tablets and cameras to have USB-C connectors as part of a common charger standard by the end of 2024, forcing Apple to change the design of its phones.