EU Reding: Apple Still Not Informing Customers Correctly About Warranty Rights in EU

A senior European Union official said that Apple still isn't informing consumers correctly about their legal warranty rights in many EU member states, as she called for Brussels to take a greater role in shaping a common approach to consumer protection rules.

The EU's Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding honed in on the Apple case as an example of weak and diverse enforcement of consumer rules within the EU. Reding wrote to national governments last September encouraging them to take action over the way Apple advertises their commercial warranties and to ensure Apple was respecting the legal guarantee of a two-year warranty that consumers are entitled to under EU law. "This case and the responses I received since I sent my letter have highlighted rather clearly just why the Commission cannot sit on the side-lines on enforcement issues," she said. "The approaches to enforcement in these types of cases turn out to be very diversified and inconsistent at a national level. In at least 21 EU Member States Apple is not informing consumers correctly about the legal warranty rights they have. This is simply not good enough."