DRC launches legal action against Apple for its role in illegal mineral exploitation

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has filed a complaint against Apple subsidiaries in France and Belgium for “illegal export and delivery” Congolese minerals, via Rwanda, and “at the cost of many crimes”, lawyers revealed Tuesday.

For several months, the DRC has accused Apple of buying smuggled minerals from the country’s unstable east, which are then transited through Rwanda, where they are laundered and integrated into global supply chains. The complaint relates not only to these facts, but also to the “deceptive commercial practices” of Apple, which would have given consumers the impression that its supply chains were “clean”, according to a press release from lawyers Robert Amsterdam (Washington), William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth (Paris), and Christophe Marchand (Brussels ).

The complaint filed in France, of which AFP has taken note, was submitted to Paris and concerns several offenses, such as concealment of crimes, including war crimes, money laundering and the use of forgery, as well as deception. . The DRC, in this “first” legal action, wishes to confront individuals and companies involved in the extraction, supply and marketing of natural resources and minerals plundered on its territory.

According to the press release, these activities caused “deep destruction and suffering” among the civilian population in some parts of the country, fueling a cycle of violence by financing militias and terrorist groups, while contributing to forced child labor and environmental degradation.

Last April, the DRC sent a formal notice to Apple regarding this situation. In response, the multinational referred to its 2023 annual report on conflict minerals, saying it had not found “no solid evidence” to affirm that its supply chains, as of December 31, 2023, had “directly or indirectly financed or benefited armed groups in the DRC or in a neighboring country”. Rwanda, for its part, deemed these allegations “unfounded”.

Since the 1990s, the east of the DRC, rich in minerals, has been the scene of violence, exacerbated since the reappearance of the M23 rebellion at the end of 2021, supported by Rwanda, and which occupies a vast part of the northern territory. Kivu.