GEEP (Global Electric Electronic Processing), a recycling company based in Ontario, Canada, faces an Apple lawsuit of $23 million over breach of contract.
According to the details of the suit, GEEP had re-sold more than 100,000 Apple products including iPhones, iPads and watches. The tech company had initially filed the suit in January 2020 and it is just becoming public now.
Apple and GEEP had agreed to run a recycling business in 2014 according to a report by The Logic. The deal was for GEEP to destroy the products that it received from Apple and then process the debris.
However, the recycling firm double-crossed its partner. Apple allegedly found that about 18% of the devices it had sent to GEEP were still active on carrier networks. Its suspicion had been initially raised when it found that some devices were been taken to parts of the building that were CCTV blind spots.
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Also, Apple said that not all of the 573,200 devices that it sent to GEEP connects to carrier services. Thus, there could have been more resold devices than it has tracked. Of these sent devices, 530,000 of them were iPhones.
Apple, in a statement, said that the devices it sent to GEEP for recycling were deemed unsuitable for consumers. Thus, reselling them after being repaired or rebuilt would cause dissatisfaction and could lead to electrical or battery-related harm.
Meanwhile, in a statement credited to GEEP’s executives, the company admitted that some products were re-sold. But it blames rascal employees for this activities. On the other hand, Apple claims that senior management staffs were likely involved. This is an issue of black market sales where price cuts are rewarded with substandard products.
Tech recycling is a big problem in many parts of the world. The fact that many new products are coming out regularly to replace old ones means that tech waste will continue to grow. Companies are being mandated to seek out the best way to handle their wastes or face serious sanctions.
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