A European court has invalidated the decision to impose fines of almost €1 billion on Qualcomm in the case of Commission vs. Qualcomm over alleged abuse of dominance of the worldwide chipset market.

Qualcomm develops and supplies baseband chipsets designed for use in smartphones and tablets, enabling them to connect to cellular networks.

The case was originally brought against the US-based chipmaker in 2018 by regulators of the European Commission for alleged abuse of dominance on the worldwide market for chipsets compatible with the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard.

The Commission attested that the abuse alluded to in their filing was characterised by the existence of agreements providing for incentive payments, under which Apple had to obtain its requirements for LTE chipsets exclusively from Qualcomm.

The Commission characterised these as exclusivity payments and stated they could have ‘anticompetitive’ effects on the marketplace as they had reduced Apple’s incentives to switch to competing LTE chipset providers.

The court annulled the Commission’s decision in its entirety, citing a number of procedural irregularities which affected Qualcomm’s rights of defence and an inadequate analysis of the anticompetitive effects of the incentive payments.

Pointing to further discrepancies on the Commission’s putting together of a casefile, the court said: “It is for the Commission to record, in the form of its choosing, the precise content of all interviews conducted for the purposes of collecting information relating to the subject matter of an investigation.

“In the present case, the Commission failed to respect that obligation fully so far as concerns, in particular, the holding of meetings and conference calls with third parties.”

Share Story: