Apple continues to lose the court battle in Brazil over the decision to remove the charger from the iPhone boxes. São Paulo state court ruled against the tech giant in a lawsuit filed by the Brazilian Consumer Association, a group of renters, consumers and taxpayers, and fined 100 million reals (about $19 million). In addition, the court ordered Apple to supply a charger to all customers in Brazil who have purchased an iPhone 12 or 13 in the past few years and begin to include all new purchases. As you can imagine, Apple has told news organizations it will appeal this decision.
According to Barron’s, the judge in charge of the case described not including the chargers in the box as a malicious practice that “requires consumers to purchase a second product for the first to work.” Apple has been in dispute with Brazilian authorities on this issue for some time. In 2021, São Paulo consumer protection agency Procon-SP fined Apple nearly $2 million for removing the power adapter from the iPhone 12, saying it violated Brazil’s Consumer Defense Law.
In September, the country’s Justice Department issued an order banning Apple from selling iPhones without a charger. It also fined the company an additional $2.38 million and ordered the iPhone 12’s registration to be revoked with Brazil’s national telecommunications agency. The technology giant also objected to this decision.
Apple stopped shipping its iPhones with power adapters in 2020 with the release of the iPhone 12. The company has raised environmental concerns about issuing new chargers with every device purchase, claiming that the decision will save 861,000 tons of copper, zinc and tin.
The Brazilian Ministry of Justice dismissed this justification, saying it could help the environment in other ways, such as giving Apple support for USB-C on its devices. In Europe, Apple has a few years to make this transition after the European Parliament voted to make USB-C the common charging standard in the EU. Mobile devices such as the iPhone sold in the region will need to come with USB-C charging posts by the end of 2024.
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