Ho Chi Minh City People's Court has just turned down a lawsuit by two Vietnamese lawyers against Apple Company over their software that they claim slows down older iPhones. 

The court returned a 600-page document sent by two lawyers Nguyen Ngoc Hung and Tran Manh Tung from Hanoi Bar Association on March 28, saying that they lacked enough evidence to launch a court basing on the Vietnamese Civil Law. 

600-page document sent by two lawyers Nguyen Ngoc Hung and Tran Manh Tung from Hanoi Bar Association to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court on March 28

"We have asked the two lawyers to provide more related documents but they had failed to meet the deadline," the court said.

Hung and Tung submitted the document to the court three months ago in which they accused Apple of deliberately making faulty updates to force users to spend money on battery replacement or a new phone. 

"Apple have violated Vietnamese Consumer Protection Law," the lawyers said in their document. 

Hung and Tung demanded Apple to issue solutions to stop the slowdown or offer free battery replacements to all users.

They also created a website to encourage iPhone users to register and join in the lawsuit. By March 28, over 4,771 people have registered. 

The two lawyers have expressed disappointment with the announcement from the court yesterday.

"We have supplied documents as asked by the court on March 13," Hung said. "So they are seriously violating the Civil Procedure Code by turning down our lawsuit."

The lawyer said they had also sent a CD which showed that that was Apple's purpose to cause the damage to old iPhone. He also enclosed an apology letter from Apple to iPhone users, an investment license certificate and a business registration certificate of Apple Vietnam Company which represents Apple.

The market value in Vietnam is estimated to worth USD900m and will soon pass USD1bn. iPhones account for the largest share of Apple products sold in the country.

The slowdown was not publicly announced but only discovered by another party. Several consumer protection organisations also said Apple might have hidden the information in order to force their customers to buy new phones.

Dtinews