Canada Global (Web News) Tuesday, Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) asked a London tribunal to dismiss a $2 billion lawsuit claiming it of “throttling” millions of iPhones with software updates in order to conceal damaged batteries.
The tech company is facing a lawsuit from consumer advocate Justin Gutmann on behalf of iPhone owners in the UK that may be valued up to 1.6 billion pounds (plus interest).
In court documents, Gutmann’s attorneys claimed that Apple disguised battery problems with some phone models and “surreptitiously” inserted a performance-restricting power management tool.
In written submissions, Apple argued that the complaint is “baseless” and vehemently denied that the batteries in its iPhones were faulty, with the exception of a small number of iPhone 6s models for whom it provided free battery replacements.
According to the business, the performance of an iPhone 6 was only decreased by an average of 10% by its power management update, which was issued in 2017 to manage demands on older batteries or with a low level of charge.
On Tuesday, Gutmann requested that the case be certified and allowed to move forward towards a trial from London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal.
According to his attorney Philip Moser, Apple’s 2020 settlements of a U.S. class action lawsuit and regulatory actions brought by U.S. states regarding iPhone battery issues demonstrate that Apple was not “saying this never happened.”
In 2019, Apple promised Britain’s competition watchdog that it would be “clearer and more upfront” with iPhone consumers regarding battery health.
The business disputes that it misled customers about iPhone battery problems and cites a 2017 public apology in which it offered cheaper battery replacements to impacted customers.
According to court documents filed by Apple’s attorney David Wolfson, the complaint essentially claims that “not all batteries could deliver the peak power demanded in all circumstances at all times,” a problem that affects all battery-powered gadgets.
