Qualcomm Wins EU Fine Appeal

Qualcomm won its fight against a €997 million fine. It was imposed by the EU antitrust regulators four years ago.

In the 2018 decision, the European Commission said Qualcomm paid Apple from 2011 to 2016 to use only its chips in its devices to block out rivals such as Intel. The General Court annulled the EU finding and faulted the competition enforcer over the handling of the case. "A number of procedural irregularities affected Qualcomm's rights of defense and invalidate the Commission's analysis of the conduct alleged against Qualcomm," judges said in a decision.

"The Commission did not provide an analysis which makes it possible to support the findings that the payments concerned had reduced Apple’s incentives to switch to Qualcomm's competitors to obtain supplies of LTE chipsets for certain iPad models to be launched in 2014 and 2015." The EU competition enforcer can appeal to the EU Court of Justice. The EC said in a statement it would carefully study the judgment and its implications and consider its next steps.