Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On the morning of August 30, Beijing time, the European Union has waived the fine of 1 billion euros imposed on Qualcomm. An appeals court had previously ruled that fines and trials were abnormal and that there were procedural violations in the antitrust case against Qualcomm's iPhone baseband chips.

In 2018, the European Commission said Qualcomm illegally squeezed out competitors in an agreement with Apple from 2011 to 2016. Under the agreement, Apple will continue to use Qualcomm's LTE baseband chips for the next five years. The European Commission fined Qualcomm 997 million euros ($991 million) for its actions based on antitrust rules.

Qualcomm subsequently appealed against the fine. In June 2022, the court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to show that Apple or the entire market had been damaged by the Qualcomm agreement with Apple, and stopped the previous punishment.

On Monday, local time, it was reported that the European General Court, Europe's second-highest court, criticized the way the European Commission handled the case. Qualcomm's appeal pointed out that in the initial trial, Qualcomm's right to defense was affected by procedural violations.

"some procedural irregularities affected Qualcomm's right to defence and invalidated the European Commission's analysis of Qualcomm's behaviour," the judges said. "

Qualcomm reached an exclusive agreement with Apple on baseband chips in iPhone in 2011 and extended the agreement again in 2013 until the end of 2016. At the time, the EU found that other chipmakers, competitors of Qualcomm, were "deprived of the possibility of effectively competing for important Apple businesses, regardless of the quality of their products".

Before the fine decision, internal documents obtained by the European Union showed that Apple had "seriously considered" replacing some suppliers of baseband chips long before the iPhone 7 selected Intel baseband chips. The European Commission said the fee exclusivity agreement signed by Qualcomm proved to be a factor in Apple's failure to change suppliers.

Recently, Apple and Qualcomm have just ended a battlefield of ongoing legal disputes in the United States. In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it refused to hear Apple's motion that two Qualcomm patents were invalid. The two companies reached a settlement in 2019, and the court held that Apple "lacks a position to pursue the case."

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