LUXEMBOURG: US chipmaker Qualcomm on Wednesday won its battle against a 997 million euro ($1.05 billion) fine imposed by EU antitrust regulators four years ago, slamming EU antitrust chief Margaret Vestager’s action on Big Tech. There was a big blow.
The European Commission said in its 2018 ruling that Qualcomm paid Apple billions of dollars from 2011 to 2016 to block rivals such as Intel Corp. from using only its own chips in all of its iPhones and iPads.
Qualcomm’s fine comes after Vestager over anti-competitive practices on companies ranging from Alphabet unit Google to banks and truck makers. Apple, Amazon and Facebook are being investigated.
The Court of Commons, Europe’s second largest, overruled the EU’s finding and blamed the EU’s competition promoter for handling the case.
“Several procedural irregularities affected Qualcomm’s defense rights and invalidated the Commission’s analysis of the alleged conduct against Qualcomm,” the judges said.
“The Commission did not provide an analysis that would make it possible to support the findings that related payments led Apple to switch to Qualcomm’s competitors in order to obtain LTE chipset supplies for certain iPad models launched in 2014 and 2015. The incentive was really low.” ” They said.
The EU competition promoter can appeal matters of law to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU), the highest court in Europe.
The commission said it would carefully study the decision and its implications and consider its next steps.
It is the second major defeat for Vestager, which in January lost court support to squeeze rival Advanced Micro Devices to a €1.06 billion fine on Intel.
Vestager’s next trial is on September 14, when the General Court will rule on Google’s challenge against a record 4.34 billion euro antitrust fine imposed for using its Android mobile operating system to take out rivals.
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