On Friday, a Russian legal firm said that it has launched a lawsuit against Apple, demanding $1.28 million in damages for customers who were damaged by Apple’s decision to suspend its payment service from Russia. A request for comment from Apple AAPL, -3.66 percent was not immediately returned.
Apple had infringed Russian consumers’ rights, according to law firm Chernyshov, Lukoyanov & Partners, when it prohibited the use of its built-in Apple Pay service on March 1 in reaction to Moscow’s deploying soldiers into Ukraine. The complaint, which it claims was filed in a Moscow court, seeks 90 million rubles in damages, including compensation for “moral damage” to citizens, according to the statement. It also wants Apple to allow Russian customers to use Apple Pay again.
If the law firm continues to solicit more people to join the case, the overall sum might rise. According to Senior Partner Konstantin Lukoyanov, Apple’s parent US organization has decided to halt sales of Apple products and services in Russia. “As a result, the allegations in our action are addressed first and foremost against the parent firm and then to its subsidiary entities,” he said in a statement.
Last month, Apple curtailed the availability of its payment service, Apple Pay, in Russia, as a number of corporations cut their presence in the country in response to the invasion of Ukraine. According to the law firm, Apple’s decision to end Apple Pay services in Russia has reduced the usefulness of its products on the Russian market, lowering their value, actions that it argues are illegal and discriminatory under Russian law. The same law firm is pursuing a similar action against Netflix, which shut down its service in Russia in March.
Apple claimed it was “very troubled” by what was occurring in Ukraine when it limited Apple Pay, deleted Russian state-backed news sources from its App Store, and stopped all product sales in March.
