Apple has received its third fine in Brazil for not including chargers with its iPhones. A civil court judge in São Paulo issued the tech giant a 100 million real (about $19 million) fine on Thursday, French news agency Agence France-Presse reported via Barron’s.
Civil court Judge Caramuru Afonso Francisco in São Paulo reportedly issued the fine as damages in a lawsuit from the Brazilian Consumers’ Association.
The judge is also said to have ordered Apple to start selling chargers with the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 series in Brazil. Further, the judge ordered Apple to provide chargers to customers in Brazil who bought an iPhone 12 or 13 over the last two years.
Apple can appeal the ruling and will, according to Reuters’ report Thursday. Apple didn’t immediately respond to Ars Technica’s request for comment.
The ruling dubbed Apple’s charger-less iPhones an “abusive practice,” AFP said. Apple stopped including chargers with its phones starting with the iPhone 12. At the time, Apple said that removing power adapters and EarPods from iPhone boxes meant smaller, lighter boxes, which enabled “70 percent more boxes to be shipped on a pallet” and “cut over 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually.” In its 2020 iPhone 12 Product Environmental Report [PDF], Apple said it expected to avoid mining over 600,000 metric tons of copper, tin ore, and zinc by not including chargers and EarPods with the iPhone 12.
