Apple battles $2 billion lawsuit in UK that alleges it had battery issues in iPhone models

Apple has requested a London tribunal to dismiss a mass lawsuit of $2bn accusing the tech giant of deliberately hiding defective batteries in millions of iPhones.

The lawsuit, worth up to £1.6bn, was brought by Justin Gutmann on behalf of iPhone users in the UK who claim that Apple concealed issues with batteries in certain phone models and installed a power management tool that limited performance.

Apple strongly denies the allegations, stating that the lawsuit is “baseless” and that its iPhones’ batteries were not defective, except for a few iPhone 6s models, which it offered free battery replacements. The company also argues that its power management update, introduced in 2017 to manage demands on older batteries or with a low level of charge, only reduced an iPhone 6’s performance by an average of 10%.

Gutmann has asked the Competition Appeal Tribunal to certify the case and allow it to proceed towards a trial. Apple’s lawyer David Wolfson has claimed that the lawsuit effectively alleges that “not all batteries could deliver the peak power demanded in all circumstances at all times”, which was common to all battery-powered devices.