By Jonathan Stempel
Feb 26 (Reuters) – Apple urged a federal judge to dismiss a proposed class action claiming it defrauded shareholders twice, by overstating the artificial intelligence capabilities of its Siri voice assistant and falsely representing its compliance with an injunction governing commissions on app sales.
In a Wednesday filing in the San Jose, California, federal court, Apple said there was no proof it knew when discussing AI at a June 2024 conference that it would take longer than expected to incorporate two advanced AI features into Siri, potentially hurting iPhone 16 sales.
The company delayed some Siri upgrades the following March, and Chief Executive Tim Cook said two months later that developing a “more personal” Siri was “taking a bit longer than we thought.”
Apple also said it provided no assurance that its procedures designed to comply with a 2021 injunction, in a case brought by Epic Games, to let app users pay developers directly rather than have the company charge the developers hefty commissions would be foolproof.
“It is no secret that Apple faced challenges and weathered ups and downs in its stock price in 2025, like many major companies,” Apple said. “But plaintiff takes a massive and unsupported leap by claiming that securities fraud caused the temporary price drops.”
The lawsuit covers Apple shareholders who suffered potentially hundreds of billions of dollars of losses in the Cupertino, California-based company’s stock between May 3, 2024 and May 1, 2025, the day after a judge said Apple was violating the injunction.
Lawyers for shareholders led by South Korea’s National Pension Service, the world’s third largest pension fund with close to $1 trillion of assets, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Apple’s injunction required the company to provide app users with external links for purchases, so developers wouldn’t owe 30% commissions for purchases in its App Store.
The judge overseeing that case rebuked Apple for creating a new system that charged a 27% commission on some external sales. A federal appeals court partially reversed her sanctions in December.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Franklin Paul)
Comments