Europe’s second-highest court on Wednesday largely upheld the EU anti-monopoly fine imposed on US chipmaker Qualcomm, reducing it slightly from €242 million to €238.7 million.
The European Commission imposed the fine in 2019 because Qualcomm sold its chipsets below cost between 2009 and 2011. The practice, known as predatory pricing, was intended to harass British software maker Icera, now part of Nvidia Corp.
Qualcomm argued that the 3G baseband chipsets at issue in this case represented only 0.7% of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) market and that it was therefore not possible to exclude competitors from the chipset market.
The Court “thoroughly examined all the arguments put forward by Qualcomm and rejected them all in their entirety, with the exception of an argument concerning the calculation of the amount of the fine, which it considered to be partially well founded”, the Luxembourg-based General Court said.
Qualcomm may appeal to the Court of Justice of the EU, Europe’s highest court of justice.
The chipmaker did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment from Reuters.
The company convinced the same court two years ago to overturn a 2018 $997 million antitrust fine, alleging the company paid Apple billions of dollars between 2011 and 2016 to use only the company’s chips in all of its iPhones and iPads to keep rivals like Intel Corp. at bay.
The EU regulator subsequently decided not to appeal the ruling.
The case is T-671/19 Qualcomm v Commission (Qualcomm – Predatory pricing).
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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