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Qualcomm iPhone baseband chip antitrust case update: EU drops €1 billion fine

Update time : 2022-08-30 15:00:37

The European Union has dropped the €1 billion fine levied on Qualcomm. This comes after an appeals court ruled that the fine and trial in the antitrust case against Qualcomm's iPhone baseband chips was irregular and that there were procedural irregularities.

In 2018, the European Commission said that Qualcomm illegally sidelined competitors in an agreement with Apple from 2011 to 2016. Under that agreement, Apple would continue to use Qualcomm's LTE baseband chips for the next five years. The European Commission fined Qualcomm €997 million (US$991 million) for its actions based on antitrust rules.
Qualcomm subsequently appealed the fine and in June 2022, the court ruled that there was insufficient evidence that Apple or the market as a whole had been harmed by Qualcomm's agreement with Apple and halted the previous penalty.
On Monday local time, it was reported that the European General Court, the second highest court in Europe, had criticised the European Commission's handling of the case. Qualcomm's appeal pointed out that during the initial hearing, Qualcomm's right to defend itself was affected by procedural irregularities.
The judges said that "a number of procedural irregularities affected Qualcomm's right to defend itself and invalidated the European Commission's conduct analysis against Qualcomm."
In 2011, Qualcomm entered into an exclusivity agreement with Apple for cooperation on baseband chips in the iPhone and extended the agreement again in 2013 until the end of 2016. At the time, the EU found that other chipmakers who were Qualcomm competitors were "deprived of the possibility to compete effectively for Apple's important business, regardless of the quality of their products".
Internal documents obtained by the EU prior to the fine decision showed that Apple had "seriously considered" changing the supplier of some of its baseband chips long before it chose Intel's baseband chips for parts of the iPhone 7. The European Commission said that the paid exclusivity agreement signed by Qualcomm proved to be a factor in Apple's failure to switch suppliers.

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