{"id":125598,"date":"2019-07-22T08:22:12","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T12:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=125598"},"modified":"2019-07-22T08:22:12","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T12:22:12","slug":"the-american-qualcomm-company-hit-by-eu-with-second-massive-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=125598","title":{"rendered":"The American Qualcomm Company Hit by EU with Second Massive Fine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Qualcomm Hit by Second Antitrust Fine in Europe<\/h1>\n

EU competition authorities impose $272 million fine, which comes amid several legal battles for the chip maker<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said Qualcomm had abused its dominant position to drive a competitor out of business.<\/span>\u00a0PHOTO:\u00a0<\/span>STEPHANIE LECOCQ\/SHUTTERSTOCK\/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENC
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By Laurence Norman
\nThe Wall Street Journal<\/p>\n

BRUSSELS\u2014The European Union imposed a \u20ac242 million ($272 million) fine on\u00a0Qualcomm<\/a>\u00a0Inc.,<\/span>\u00a0QCOM\u00a00.85%\u00a0<\/a>the second penalty levied on the chip maker by the bloc in 18 months and its\u00a0latest antitrust action<\/a>\u00a0against a top U.S. tech company.<\/p>\n

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said Thursday that Qualcomm had abused its dominant position to drive a rival out of business, hindering competition in the market for so-called baseband chips. Qualcomm is the world\u2019s largest supplier of baseband chips. which connect smartphones and tablets to cellular networks.<\/p>\n

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Qualcomm faces several legal challenges, including in U.S. courts. At the same time, the U.S. Justice Department has warned that tough penalties may hamper the chip maker in its race against Chinese competitors to supply the rollout of 5G networks.<\/p>\n

The EU started a formal probe of Qualcomm in 2015 after British chip maker Icera alleged that between 2009 and 2011 the U.S. company engaged in \u201cpredatory pricing,\u201d selling certain chips at a price below the market to drive Icera out of business. Qualcomm has disputed the allegation.<\/p>\n

Icera was subsequently bought by\u00a0Nvidia<\/a>\u00a0Corp.<\/span>\u00a0, which later withdrew from the baseband-chip market.<\/p>\n

Ms. Vestager said Thursday that the EU had internal documents from the company showing that Qualcomm had sold its baseband chipsets to key customers at below cost with the intention of eliminating a competitor.<\/p>\n

\u201cQualcomm\u2019s strategic behavior prevented competition and innovation in this market, and limited the choice available to consumers in a sector with a huge demand and potential for innovative technologies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In a statement Thursday, Qualcomm said it would appeal the decision to the EU\u2019s courts and would provide a financial guarantee instead of paying the fine while its appeal is pending.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commission spent years investigating sales to two customers, each of whom said that they favored Qualcomm chips not because of price but because rival chipsets were technologically inferior,\u201d said Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm. \u201cThis decision is unsupported by the law, economic principles or market facts, and we look forward to a reversal on appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January 2018, the\u00a0EU slapped a fine of $1.2 billion<\/a>\u00a0on Qualcomm over payments made to a customer, Apple Inc., at the expense of chip-making rival Intel Corp. The EU\u2019s first-level appeals court, the General Court, upheld the ruling in April, and Qualcomm now is appealing to the bloc\u2019s top court.<\/p>\n

In the U.S., a federal judge ruled in May that Qualcomm\u00a0unlawfully stifled competition<\/a>\u00a0in the market for wireless chips. The decision, which sided with the Federal Trade Commission in its antitrust suit against Qualcomm, delivered a major blow to a company that has been held up by the Trump administration as a keystone in U.S. technological competition with China.<\/p>\n

The latest EU fine for Qualcomm comes a day after the bloc\u2019s antitrust authorities\u00a0opened a probe into Amazon<\/a>.com Inc. over its treatment of merchants that sell goods on its site.<\/p>\n

Ms. Vestager has emerged as a major technology regulator. The EU has issued $9.25 billion in fines against Alphabet Inc.\u2019s Google, ruling it abused the dominance of its search engine and Android operating system for mobile phones to favor its own businesses.<\/p>\n

The Danish commissioner, who is set to become a vice president of the EU\u2019s executive for the next five years, also issued a fine to Facebook Inc. for misleading regulators during a review of its acquisition of the WhatsApp chat service. Ms. Vestager also ordered Amazon, Apple and other global tech players to pay back billions of dollars in taxes under what she alleged to be sweetheart deals with tax authorities. Google is appealing the decisions against it, and Amazon and Apple are appealing the tax cases.<\/p>\n

\u2014Sam Schechner in Paris and Valentina Pop contributed to this article.<\/p>\n

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\nhttps:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/qualcomm-receives-second-antitrust-fine-in-europe-11563443152<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Qualcomm Hit by Second Antitrust Fine in Europe EU competition authorities impose $272 million fine, which comes amid several legal battles for the chip maker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}