Do you have a source? Wikipedia seems to agree with mine:
>In [British English], collective nouns can take either singular (formal agreement) or plural (notional agreement) verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is on the body as a whole or on the individual members respectively; compare 'a committee was appointed' with 'the committee were unable to agree'.
Wikipedia is correct, but that doesn't contradict my point. The actions of a company are the actions of its employees. If I say "Apple is stealing", then I mean that there are some people inside Apple who have decided to steal, so it's equally correct to say "Apple are stealing". The plural form emphasises the responsibility of the individuals, but that's not incorrect, as people don't (well, shouldn't) get a free pass just because they're acting on behalf of a corporation.
But do you really think whoever wrote the headline meant to emphasize the responsibility of the individuals? Isn't much more likely that they just used the plural verb after a company name out of habit?
I think it doesn't matter in this context. Apple doing X is the same as the individuals in Apple doing X. Whatever the author meant, it's still grammatically correct.
>In [British English], collective nouns can take either singular (formal agreement) or plural (notional agreement) verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is on the body as a whole or on the individual members respectively; compare 'a committee was appointed' with 'the committee were unable to agree'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_di...