Apple is again finding itself in the middle of a lawsuit, and this time, it is worth a whopping $2 billion.
A mass lawsuit in the United Kingdom has been filed involving Apple being accused of hiding defective batteries in millions of iPhones. The technology company is being asked to pay £1.6 billion, or approximately $2 billion, with interest.
The claim is saying that Apple used software updates to “throttle” several older iPhones, thus limiting their performance.
London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal has already been asked to certify this case and proceed to a trial.
It is a considerable sum of money, and Apple is denying the accusations, tagging the case as “baseless.” On Tuesday, the company has also already urged a London tribunal to block the lawsuit.
Apple’s lawyer, David Wolfson, said the lawsuit claims that “not all batteries could deliver the peak power demanded in all circumstances at all times,” something common to all devices powered by batteries.
The legal team that filed the lawsuit versus the Cupertino-based technology company referenced the 2020 agreements in the United States over issues with iPhones’ batteries showing Apple was not “saying this never happened.”
This team also referred to the company’s commitment to the United Kingdom’s competition watchdog in 2019 to be “clearer and more upfront” with iPhone users concerning battery health – which the recent lawsuit implied that Apple failed to do so.
Aside from denying the accusation, Apple also points out it already issued a public apology in the past, particularly in 2017, and offered more affordable battery replacements to affected users.
The company also says its power management update, which was introduced that year to manage demands on older batteries or with a low charging level, only reduced the performance of the iPhone 6 by an average of 10 percent – not dramatically reducing it.
However, Apple accepts the fact that a small number of iPhone 6s units had defective batteries, but it said it already offered battery replacements for those units.
