Apple will face a lawsuit from investors who say CEO Tim Cook misled them

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Tim Cook
Tim Cook (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

  • Apple has been told it will face a lawsuit brought by investors.
  • They say Apple CEO Tim Cook misled them in 2018.
  • The lawsuit relates to the way Cook spoke about China.

Apple and CEO Tim Cook have been told that they will face a lawsuit from investors who say that he misled them with the result being a multi-billion dollar loss.

The lawsuit goes all the way back to the end of 2018 when Cook was speaking about China. As Reuters reports, the plaintiff is a UK-based pension fund.

Apple Inc has been ordered to face a proposed class-action lawsuit by shareholders who accused Chief Executive Tim Cook of concealing falling demand for iPhones in China, resulting in billions of dollars of investor losses.In a decision on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said shareholders led by a UK pension fund can sue over Cook's comment on a Nov. 1, 2018, analyst call that while Apple was facing sales pressure in some emerging markets, "I would not put China in that category."Apple told suppliers to curb production a few days after Cook spoke, and on Jan. 2, 2019, unexpectedly cut its quarterly revenue forecast by up to $9 billion, which Cook blamed in part on pressure on China's economy from U.S.-China trade tensions.

Apple is yet to respond to the situation but it's unlikely to take the lawsuit lightly. If there's one thing that will always get a company and its CEO hot under the collar it's the prospect of misleading investors.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.