Qualcomm has just saved USD1 billion thanks to a court ruling
It's good being Qualcomm. The company has had more than a decade of indominable market presence where top phone brands including Apple and Samsung were shipping its product and it successfully avoided an hostile takeover attempt from Broadcom, if only by executive order. Even as tough times have turned things upside down for chip producers, though, Qualcomm is still doing well for itself, especially after a new billion-dollar judicial ruling in its favor.
The ruling comes from the European Union's General Court (PDF) which has annulled a €997 million fine issued in 2018 by Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition. The fine was imposed after the commission determined that Qualcomm had abused its monopoly power in the LTE chipset market by having Apple pay exclusivity royalties, thus, depressing the ability for the iPhone maker to look for competing tenders.
The court determined that Qualcomm was essentially not afforded due process in defending itself against the fines; that the commission was seen to have failed in analyzing why the license fees were anticompetitive in nature, and; that the commission didn't follow protocols such as recording interviews and conference calls to a satisfactory level when compiling its case.
Most damningly, the court sided with Qualcomm in saying that Apple had little incentive to switch suppliers in the first place because:
... Apple had had no technical alternative to Qualcomm’s LTE chipsets for the majority of its requirements during the period concerned, namely that part corresponding, in essence, to iPhones.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission as well as Apple sued Qualcomm over this very matter in 2017. The FTC initial won its case in district court, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision. Apple eventually settled and has since been working its way toward designing its own chips.
In a statement obtained by Reuters, the European Commission said it will study the judgment and consider next steps. Qualcomm has not responded to requests for comment.
( Details and picture courtesy from Source, the content is auto-generated from RSS feed.)
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