Apple Sues Recycling Firm: Resold 1 Lakh iPhones, iPads, Watches Meant For Recycling

Apple has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Geep Canada, a Canadian electronics recycling firm. Apple alleges that the company sold around 100,000 iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches, which were meant to be disintegrated and recycled.

Reuters

A report by The Logic highlights the lawsuit, alleging the theft of the Apple products by Geep Canada which had to be recycled. Although Apple had filed the complaint back in January this year, the case was made public only recently.

The report mentions that Apple had discovered the alleged thefts sometime towards the end of 2017 or start of 2018. The Cupertino tech major had since then stopped working with Geep.

As per Apple's lawsuit, the company had shipped 531,966 iPhones to Geep Canada for recycling between January 2015 and December 2017. In addition to the iPhones around 25,673 iPads and 19,277 Apple Watches were also shipped.

Recycled aluminum iPhone cases at an Apple recycling facility (Representative Image: Reuters)

This led to Apple conducting an audit of Geep's warehouse. Upon auditing, it was learnt that some of the Apple devices ¡°were being stored away from those of other firms,¡± mentions an Apple Insider report quoting that of The Logic.

Since these new storage locations were not covered by security cameras, Apple cross checked the serial numbers of all devices that were shipped to Geep Canada. It reportedly discovered that around 18% or 103,845 of all those devices were active on carrier networks.

In its lawsuit, Apple claims that the true number of stolen devices will be considerably higher, since non-LTE ones can¡¯t be shown. "At least 11,766 pounds of Apple devices left GEEP's premises without being destroyed - a fact that GEEP itself confirmed," said Apple in its lawsuit.

Interestingly, Geep did not deny the charges and instead filed a counter lawsuit in July. Geep claimed that the theft or the resale of the devices meant to be recycled was conducted by three "rogue" employees. It clarified that the company had now knowledge of the matter whatsoever.

Camera modules and speaker modules removed from iPhones. (Representative Image: Reuters)

Apple argued that these employees were senior management at the firm and hence holds the firm accountable for the charges. It now seeks full recovery of the profits made from the resale of these devices, in addition to USD 22.7 million.

As per Geep's court filings, the company wants the three employees to pay damages and costs, in case Apple wins the lawsuit. The company argues that it had to suffer "extensive business losses" because of the thefts that also led to the termination of the contract with Apple.