Sources say EU abandons appeal: Qualcomm eventually wins a $1 billion antitrust appeal involving the supply of Apple's iPhone / iPad chips
Sina Science and Technology News on the evening of August 29, Beijing time, according to reports, people familiar with the matter said today that the European Commission, the EU's antitrust regulator, will not appeal against Qualcomm's $1 billion antitrust case, because it is difficult to persuade the EU Supreme Court to rule in its favor.
The case began in 2018, when the European Commission announced an antitrust fine of 997 million euros ($991 million) on Qualcomm. The reason is that Qualcomm paid a huge fee to Apple to use only its chips, thus shutting out competitors such as Intel.
The European Commission said at the time that Qualcomm's anti-competitive behaviour took place between 2011 and 2016. During that time, Qualcomm paid Apple billions of dollars to use its chips on all iPhone and iPad.
But in June this year, the European Union General Court of Justice (General Court), the second highest court in Europe, rejected the European Commission's ruling, saying the fine of 997 million euros was invalid. Clearly, this is a big blow to Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust chief. Over the past few years, Vestager has been investigating the antitrust behavior of American technology giants and made a series of fines.
The European Commission can appeal the decision of the European General Court to the European Court of Justice (CJEU), the European Supreme Court. But people familiar with the matter said today that the European Commission would not appeal because it would be difficult to persuade the EU Supreme Court to rule in its favor.
Vestager will face her next test on Sept. 14 after the Qualcomm case is dismissed. At that time, the European General Court of Justice will rule on Google's Android appeal.
In July 2018, the European Commission announced an antitrust fine of 4.34 billion euros on Google. The European Commission said at the time that Google had imposed some illegal restrictions on Android device makers and mobile operators because of its dominant position in the Internet search market since 2011.
