Before Christmas, as we reported, Apple was fined €900,000 by Italy’s antitrust regulator, the AGCM, for failing to explain customers’ statutory rights and selling them AppleCare warranties that partially duplicated the vendor’s existing obligations. Now the controversy has spread across Europe. On 19 March, 11 national consumer authorities – via the European Consumers’ Organisation, BEUC – formally called on Apple to ‘halt misleading practices’.
The Italian case centred on the EU requirement for manufacturers to be held accountable for defects in goods for at least two years from purchase. By offering only a one-year guarantee, and charging users extra for an extension to this via AppleCare, Apple was found to have breached the rules as implemented in Italian law.
Although the relevant EU Directive also applies to the UK as a member state, the situation here is a little different. Regardless of any warranty explicitly offered by the manufacturer, our more stringent national laws give consumers up to six years to claim a replacement or refund for products that are found to have an inherent defect. Because of this, the two-year warranty rule has not been incorporated specifically into UK legislation and it remains normal for manufacturers to offer only a one-year warranty, with buyers covered by their statutory rights beyond that time.
Nonetheless, AppleCare appears to duplicate UK consumers’ statutory rights in the same way as in Italy, and it’s hard to see how AppleCare would not fall foul of the UK’s consumer protection legislation in the same way as Italy’s. We’ve asked both Apple and the Office of Fair Trading for comment, and will post any replies we receive.
UPDATE: The OFT tells us it does not comment on individual cases.
