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Apple has announced that it is going to appeal the decision of the Brazilian Ministry of Justice to ban the sale of iPhone 12 and newer iPhone models in the country. Earlier, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice announced in an official gazette that it has fined Apple an amount of $2.38 million. Along with the fine, the Ministry of Justice also prohibited Apple from selling iPhone 12 and later models which do not ship with a charger in the box. The Brazilian Justice Ministry announced its decision on Tuesday in a published gazette. In that gazette, the ministry mentioned that Apple is deliberately not giving an essential component such as the charger with iPhones, which is a violation of consumer rights in the country.
Apple removed the chargers from iPhone boxes since the launch of the iPhone 12 and related variants in 2020. The explanation given by Apple for this decision was that removing the chargers will significantly help to reduce the carbon footprint of the company. Apple also stated that it will reduce the packaging waste related to shipping the phones to the users. As people will be using their existing chargers longer, it will reduce the e-waste caused by people who throw away their chargers when they buy a new phone. Apple was heavily criticized by the people and their competition such as Samsung and Xiaomi. But just in a few months, Samsung and Xiaomi followed the same suit.
Many industry experts and environmentalists bashed Apple for ‘greenwashing’ people into thinking that having phones shipped without chargers is helpful for the environment. Greenwashing is the concept used for marketing any company or a business to look environment-friendly and green, but in reality, contradicts this image. There are no validated studies that claim that removing chargers from the phone is beneficial for the environment in any way. New findings published earlier this year highlighted that Apple saved around $6 billion by not shipping the charger in a box. Based on these observations, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice denied the argument thrown by Apple stating the positives of not including a charger, as it failed to provide any evidence backing up the claim. Apple was also fined at the time of launching the iPhone 12, the first iPhone to be shipped without a charger. At that time, Apple was fined around $1.9 million, which forced Apple to include a charger for at least one state in Brazil.
Apple is just a day away from the launch of its latest range of iPhones. Apple, in the latest event, will be launching iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Max, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. The sales ban in Brazil, which is one of the biggest markets for the company, is significantly expected to impact the sale of the new iPhone line-up.
Because of this, Apple announced that it will appeal the decision of Brazil’s Ministry of Justice to ban the sale of iPhones in the country. Apple also stated that previously, Apple has managed to successfully rule out several restrictions cast upon them, and it believes that this time also, they will be able to convince the Ministry of Justice.
Yash Ranjan09/07/2022
