The Paris prosecutor’s office yesterday said a probe in Apple Inc was opened last week and is being led by the French body in charge of fraud control, which is part of the Ministry for the Economy and Finance.
It follows a legal complaint filed last month by a French consumer rights group, Stop Planned Obsolescence (HOP, or Halte a l’Obsolescence Programmee), that aims to stop intentional obsolescence of goods by companies.
In France it is illegal to intentionally shorten the lifespan of a product in order to encourage customers to replace it.
The investigation into possible “planned obsolescence” or “fraud” was opened on Friday and is being led by anti-trust and consumer protection specialists in the ministry, a judicial source said.
Apple France gave no comment on the matter when contacted by reporters.
Planned obsolescence is a widely criticized commercial practice in which manufacturers build in the expiry of their products so that consumers will be forced to replace them.
It is decried by consumer groups as being unethical and is suspected of being particularly prevalent in the electronics industry, which produces mountains of unrecyclable waste each year.
To tackle the problem, France passed landmark legislation in 2015 known as “Hamon’s law,” which made the practice illegal and — in theory — obliged retailers to say whether replacement parts were available.
The law, named after former French junior minister for the social economy Benoit Hamon, stipulates that a company found to be deliberately shortening the life of its products can be fined up to 5 percent of its annual sales while executives can face up to two years in jail.
HOP praised the decision of French authorities to dig into Apple’s practices.
“It is the first criminal procedure in the world against a company on the basis of planned obsolescence,” said Emile Meunier, a lawyer for the group.
Apple last month confirmed what critics had suspected for years: that it intentionally slows performance of older iPhones as their batteries weaken with age.
The company said this was to extend the performance of the phone, which uses less power when running at slower speeds, and was to prevent unexpected shutdowns due to a low battery charge.
It denied incorporating planned obsolescence.
However, the company also issued an apology for slowing older models and said it would discount replacement batteries for some handsets.
HOP believes Apple could be liable for a fine in line with the value of all of its iPhone sales in France since Hamon’s law came into force on Aug. 17, 2015.
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