European Union court largely upholds Qualcomm antitrust penalty in 2019 case but trims fine

LONDON (AP) — Qualcomm lost its legal fight on Wednesday to get a European Union antitrust penalty thrown out after a top court largely rebuffed the technology company’s arguments in the case involving cellphone chipsets.

The European Union’s General Court said it was rejecting most of Qualcomm’s appeal against the 242 million euro ($269 million) fine that the bloc’s regulators issued in 2019, when they accused the company of “predatory pricing” to drive a competitor out of the market.

The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch and top antitrust enforcer, said five years ago that Qualcomm abused its market dominance in 3G baseband chipsets, selling them below the cost of production to force startup Icera out of the market a decade prior.

The court said in a press release that after examining Qualcomm’s arguments, it was “rejecting them all in their entirety,” except for the company’s plea that the commission didn’t follow guidelines in calculating the fine. Therefore the court trimmed the fine to 238.7 million euros.

Qualcomm said it “respectfully disagrees with the judgment and the Commission’s decision and believes that we have always remained in compliance with European competition law.”

In a separate case the European Commission fined Qualcomm $1.23 billion after concluding it bribed Apple to stifle competition, but the General Court overturned that decision in 2022 after the company appealed.

The Associated Press