Brazil Fines Apple $19 Million for Not Including Chargers with iPhones

The Brazilian court fines Apple for leaving out chargers from boxes of iPhones sold in the country, warranting the company to pay $19 Million.

According to Mac Rumors, Apple must now offer battery chargers with iPhone purchases as opposed to making customers buy them separately as mandated by the Sao Paulo state court.

The Court Is Fining The Company For 'Social Damages'

CNet writes that the Brazilian court has banned Apple from selling iPhones without charges back in September and was initially fined for $2.38 million.

Because of the lawsuit filed by the Brazilian Consumers' Association, the fine was repealed and replaced with the new fine worth $19 million after careful consideration, Barrons writes.

During its sales in Brazil, Apple stopped including chargers with iPhone purchases to reduce their carbon emissions since most customers already have chargers available.

Apple also began not including earbuds and power adapters with the release of iPhone 12 in 2020 in an effort to move towards a more carbon-neutral supply strategy, CNet says.

"It is evident that, under the justification of a 'green initiative,' the defendant imposes on the consumer a required purchase of charger adapters," the court ruling details.

The judge also implored the California-based tech giant to roll out chargers for customers in Brazil who purchased the iPhones 12 and 13 from two years ago, Tech Xplore reports.

Apple Has Been Here Before

The Justice Ministry of Brazil has previously told Apple that they should stop selling incomplete products because it is a "deliberate discriminatory practice against consumers."

According to Apple Insider, the local law requires transparency from the company should they decide to sell incomplete sets of gadgets, which Apple failed to do so.

The Brazilian court believes that concealing the fact that there would be exclusions from the products they expect to receive is ostentatious and false advertising.

Aside from the lawsuits and court rulings mentioned before, Apple has already been previously slapped worth $3.7 million in the country, which they appealed to buy more time to settle.

In most countries, however, the court is fine with Apple shipping iPhones without earpods or charging cables, only including a USB-C to Lightning charging cable in their packaging.

"Power adapters represented our largest use of zinc and plastic and eliminating them from the box helped cut over 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions," Apple tells Bloomberg.

The company added that eliminating such a number of carbon emissions is equivalent to removing 500,000 cars from the road annually as part of its global initiative of climate justice.

However, the Brazilian government has also found an issue regarding the supply of USB-C products, as the regulatory agency Anatel proposed that USB-C usage should be standard.

9to5 Mac writes that this aligns with the European Union's recent decision to force Apple to adapt USB-C for iPhone in 2024, which the US Senate is looking to adapt.

With the pre-orders for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro starting to come in from Brazil in the last week, it is important to note that they still ship without chargers, contrary to the jurisdiction.

Earlier this year, Brazil also gave Samsung the same ultimatum, which the Korean company has been compliant with, according to 9to5 Mac.