Скачать или смотреть US chip giant Qualcomm wins anti-trust case against EU

On Wednesday, June 15th, a European Union court invalidated a decision by the bloc’s executive arm to fine technology company Qualcomm more than $1 billion in an antitrust case.


European regulators fined Qualcomm $1.23 billion in 2018 after concluding the chip and software maker bribed Apple to exclusively use its products in iPhones and iPads, thereby stifling competition.


The regulators contended Qualcomm secretly paid Apple to use its chips for connecting to high-speed cellular networks as long as Apple didn’t switch to rival products during that period. Without providing specifics, EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said at the time that Qualcomm had doled out “billions of dollars” to Apple from 2011 to 2016.


In overruling the European Commission, the Luxembourg-based General Court cited “a number of procedural irregularities” that affected the American company's defense rights and rejected the commission’s “analysis of the conduct alleged against Qualcomm.”


The General Court said that in addition to identifying procedural irregularities, it disagreed with the analysis of the anticompetitive effects of the payments.


“While the commission concluded that the incentive payments had reduced Apple’s incentives to switch to competing suppliers to source LTE chipsets, it is apparent from the commission decision that Apple had had no technical alternative to Qualcomm’s LTE chipsets for the majority of its requirements,” the court said.


The EU competition enforcer can still appeal on matters of law to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU), Europe's highest court. The Commission said it would carefully study the judgment and its implications and consider its next steps.


According to an article from Reuters, this is the second major defeat for Vestager who in January lost the court’s backing for a 1.06 billion euro fine on Intel 12 years ago for squeezing rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O).


Vestager’s next test is on September 14th when the General Court will rule on Google's challenge against a record 4.34 billion euro antitrust fine levied for using its Android mobile operating system to squeeze out rivals.


ETB NEWS: Yi Pan, Meixing Ren Contributed to this article.