Qualcomm Wins Appeal of $1 Billion EU Antitrust Fine

Qualcomm has won its appeal of a $1 billion antitrust fine imposed by EU antitrust regulators, reports Reuters.

The company was fined 997 million euro ($1.05 billion) back in 2018 for paying Apple billions of dollars from 2011 to 2016 to only use its chips in iPhones and iPads, blocking rivals such as Intel.

Europe's second-highest court, the General Court, annulled the EU finding and faulted the European Commission over its handling of the case.


"A number of procedural irregularities affected Qualcomm's rights of defence and invalidate the Commission's analysis of the conduct alleged against Qualcomm," judges said. "The Commission did not provide an analysis which makes it possible to support the findings that the payments concerned had actually reduced Apple’s incentives to switch to Qualcomm's competitors in order to obtain supplies of LTE chipsets for certain iPad models to be launched in 2014 and 2015."

This decision can still be appealed to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) which is Europe's highest court. The Commission says it will carefully study the judgement and consider its next steps.

More details in the full report linked below...

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