Common sense would surely say that becoming a for-profit company or whatever they did would mean they’ve breached that law. I assume they figured out a way around it or I’ve misunderstood something though.

From what I understand, iPhones will downclock themselves when the battery degrades to make a charge last longer and prevent crashes. So your slow phones might have been fixable with a new battery.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-turn-off-battery-throttling-on-your-iphone/