(Vancouver) A British Columbia judge will decide next month whether to approve a multimillion-dollar settlement in a class-action lawsuit against Apple for allegedly slowing down older iPhone models with its software updates.
Company lawyers and class members from a lawsuit originally filed in 2018 were in a Vancouver courtroom Monday, seeking approval of the settlement, where consumers would receive between $17.50 and $150 , depending on the number of successful complaints.
Michael Peerless, a lawyer for the group, told Judge Sharon Matthews that the amounts will be paid to those who can prove ownership of the affected phones, including several iPhone 6 and 7 models.
He said the settlement had been “hardly negotiated” after “long and difficult negotiations” with the company, and said the amounts offered in payment were “within the range a consumer should expect”.
Me Peerless told the judge that similar litigation in the United States provided a “valuable road map” during settlement negotiations, which could see Apple pay a maximum of around 14.4 million to class members.
Similar lawsuits have been filed in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The settlement agreement would apply to residents of all provinces except Quebec.
“Real monetary benefits”
The US case, in California, saw the company settle with iPhone users whose devices were restricted by software updates, decreasing the phones’ performance and battery life.
The settlement range for cases in California was between $310 million and $500 million.
Me Peerless said the claims process will be very “simple,” with an online and paper option that people can use if they purchase devices with slow performance and battery issues.
“It provides real monetary benefits, not massively large, but real. This is not a voucher settlement, it is cash and provides reasonable compensation for what the class members suffered,” the lawyer said.
It would have taken “several years” to get paid if the case had gone to trial, he added, and there would be no guarantee of success or greater compensation if they had chosen that route.
“The damages in a case like this are difficult to quantify,” said Michael Peerless. There is no real judicial directive for something like this. We will never have a Supreme Court of Canada trilogy on the damage caused to a slowed-down smartphone. But what we were able to do was negotiate the maximum possible amount for a very large number of class members in this case. »
He said notice of the settlement was communicated to approximately nine million class members by email and 10,000 by physical mail, while also receiving “significant media coverage.”
Jill Yates, Apple’s lawyer, told the court that the company had never admitted wrongdoing.
“Apple, from the beginning, has always maintained that it did nothing wrong here,” she detailed. These claims are new and Apple does not acknowledge that anything was done unlawfully. »