Court documents have revealed that Apple charges fines of up to $50 million for any partner who leaks information on its upcoming products.
GT Advanced has been in the news recently for declaring bankruptcy. The company signed a deal to make sapphire glass exclusively for Apple, but has run into financial difficulty in recent weeks – to the evident surprise of Apple, which lent GT Advanced $578 million last November to set-up and produce a sapphire glass manufacturing facility in Arizona.
In a court document filed by GT Advanced, the company puts some of those financial woes down to what it calls “oppressive and burdensome” agreements with Apple.
One of those agreements is revealed as a staggering $50 million fine should Apple’s partner reveal details on any of the company’s products in development. In actual fact, Apple isn’t specifically named here, but it’s clearly the company in question.
Naturally, such an agreement would make bankruptcy proceedings – which require the outing of specific details concerning the business to the courts (and hence the public) – tricky, to say the least.
As such, GT Advanced is requesting that some of its most sensitive documents be kept private, so as not to fall foul of Apple’s exacting financial requirements. As Reuters reports, this unusual move could leave investors in the dark as to why exactly the company has run into such trouble, as well as how it plans to emerge from them.
GT Advanced’s stock price dropped dramatically following the announcement of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which shipped without the sapphire glass-covered screens many had been predicting.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
