Apple has sued its recycling partner GEEP Canada, accusing it of reselling the devices sent for destruction. The company claims that the contractor has sold more than 100,000 units of iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch transferred for recycling under the contract, writes Business Insider.
The loss was noticed during an audit by Apple. It turned out that some of the gadgets were moved to places that were out of sight of the surveillance cameras, and kept separate from other equipment. Serial number analysis showed that, despite the handover to the contractor, approximately 18 percent of the devices were still active on the carriers' networks. Representatives of the company suggest that the number of devices sold could be much higher, since only models with LTE were taken into account during the verification.
In the lawsuit published by The Logic, Apple notes that between 2015 and 2017, it transferred more than 530,000 iPhones, 25,000 iPads and 19,200 Apple Watches for recycling to GEEP Canada. The thefts were identified between 2017 and 2018. Since then, the corporation has not worked with GEEP Canada. The company demanded to pay 31 million Canadian dollars (about 23 million US dollars – approx. “Lenta.ru” ), as well as all the money earned from the resale.
GEEP claims that three unscrupulous employees were involved in the sale of the devices, so funds should be collected from them, however, Apple representatives insist that those involved in the thefts did not occupy the last positions in the company. “The officials and directors of GEEP knew or could have guessed about the existing scheme,” the lawsuit says.
