Apple and Tesla are accused in a pair of lawsuits of engaging in “deceptive marketing” of their products, by suggesting to consumers that they’re manufactured ethically and sustainably, while both companies allegedly use raw materials linked to child labor, forced labor, gang rape, torture, killings, poisoned rivers and ruined crops.
The allegations in the lawsuits filed by Washington, D.C.-based International Rights Advocates in District of Columbia Superior Court differ in certain details but each focus on Democratic Republic of Congo, where large reserves of minerals used in many consumer-technology products have led to bloody conflict and a massive humanitarian crisis.
At issue in the lawsuits are two minerals, cobalt — used in rechargeable batteries for electric cars and electronic devices including those sold by Tesla and Apple — and coltan, which is refined into tantalum, a heat-resistant metallic powder used to regulate electrical current in phones and laptops, including Apple’s.
Both companies are accused of breaking a Washington, D.C. consumer-protection law by deceptively appealing to customers’ desire to buy products free of connections to abuses of people and the environment, while allegedly profiting from the use of minerals linked to such abuses. Both lawsuits seek court orders prohibiting the companies from engaging in behavior that violates the consumer-protection law.
Apple said the lawsuit’s claims “have no basis in fact.” Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.
The two minerals have been central to a violent, decades-long scramble for control over Congo mining areas by dozens of militias, Congolese soldiers, rebels and neighboring countries that is estimated to have killed 6 million people since 1996. Millions of people in Congo are currently displaced by armed conflict, according to the United Nations.
Apple sources all its cobalt directly from Congo or indirectly through suppliers in other countries like China that obtain Congolese cobalt, the lawsuit filed Nov. 25 against the Cupertino company alleged.
According to the filing, Apple’s suppliers engage in forced and child labor, and beatings of workers. Government soldiers, police and mine security routinely shoot unauthorized miners in mining areas and have gang-raped women, while some locals mistaken for rogue “artisanal” miners, or who have protested mining damage to the environment, are tortured by police, the lawsuit alleged. “Victims as young as twelve-years-old described being bitten by guard dogs,” the lawsuit claimed.
It also alleged that suppliers have released large volumes of ore-processing acids into rivers and lakes, destroying drinking water supplies, crops and fish farms, and causing miscarriages, birth defects, and skin diseases among residents.
Apple said it had “long been on the path of using recycled material” in its products and that “99% of the cobalt in Apple designed batteries is recycled,” and that Apple-designed batteries comprise more than 97% of Apple’s cobalt use.
The lawsuit claimed that raw cobalt ore is used in the recycling process, so “it is impossible to guarantee that raw ore is not contained in the ‘recycled’ output.”
For coltan, Apple relies on three Chinese companies and one firm in Kazakhstan, with the mineral likely originating in a mining area of eastern Congo, the lawsuit claimed. That mining zone has been fiercely fought over by armed groups, and has been controlled by Rwanda-backed “M23” rebels since April last year. The lawsuit said M23 controls coltan mining, taxation and trade, and that those who have sought to transport the mineral outside rebel channels have been tortured. The rebels have “killed, tortured, and disappeared civilians; forcibly recruited children; pillaged natural resources; and committed rape and other acts of sexual violence,” the lawsuit said, citing a UN report from last year.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit pointed to numerous statements by Apple that extol its stated commitment to sourcing free of abuses, including the company’s code of conduct for suppliers. The code says Apple “is committed to respecting the highest standards of labor, human rights, environmental, and ethical conduct,” and that its suppliers “are required to provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, act fairly and ethically, and use environmentally responsible practices.”
Apple said that as conflict escalated in eastern Congo last year, it told suppliers their smelters and refiners must suspend sourcing tantalum and other mined products from Congo.
The lawsuit against Tesla — which operates a large electric car factory in Fremont — claimed it sources cobalt for its batteries from several of the same companies highlighted in the Apple lawsuit, that employ child miners under unsafe conditions, engage in forced labor, contaminate land and water, and whose security forces have committed gang rape and shot civilians.
Numerous public statements from Tesla tout a purported commitment to human rights and the environment, the lawsuit said, including its “responsible sourcing policy” saying it will not tolerate in its supply chain air or water pollution, forced labor, or “torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.”