Lawsuit against Apple over iPhone batteries can proceed

(Reuters) — Apple Inc. on Wednesday lost a bid to block a mass London lawsuit worth up to $2 billion that accuses the tech giant of hiding defective batteries in millions of iPhones.

The lawsuit was brought by British consumer champion Justin Gutmann on behalf of around 24 million iPhone users in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Gutmann is seeking damages from Apple on their behalf of up to £1.6 billion ($1.9 billion) plus interest, with the claim’s midpoint range being £853 million.

His lawyers argued Apple concealed issues with batteries in certain phone models by “throttling” them with software updates and installed a power management tool that limited performance.

Apple said the lawsuit is “baseless” and strongly denied batteries in iPhones were defective, apart from in a small number of iPhone 6s models for which it offered free battery replacements.

The company sought to get the case thrown out of court, but the Competition Appeal Tribunal said in a written ruling Wednesday that Mr. Gutmann’s case can proceed.

The CAT did, however, say there was “a lack of clarity and specificity” in Mr. Gutmann’s case that needed to be resolved before any trial.