A Brazilian court fined Apple Inc 100 million reais ($19 million) after ruled that battery chargers must come with new iPhones sold in the country.
The development comes after the Justice Ministry in Brazil fined Apple $2.34 million in the Month of September 2022 for the same charges, the ministry also ordered the company to stop selling any iPhone that does not come with a charger in the box.
Brazilian officials say that Apple is giving customers an incomplete product when the power adapter is not included with the purchase, a move the government claims is a “deliberate discriminatory practice against consumers.”
Apple stopped providing chargers with iPhones starting with the 2020Â launch of the iPhone 12 lineup. In most countries, Apple no longer ships iPhones with EarPods or a power adapter, including just a USB-C to Lightning charging cable.
Apple defended itself saying, “At Apple, we consider our impact on people and the planet in everything we do,” the company said in an emailed statement. “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 — equivalent to removing 500,000 cars from the road per year.”
