By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s second court on Wednesday largely upheld an EU antitrust fine imposed on U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm (NASDAQ:), reducing it slightly from an initial 242 million euros to 238.7 million euros ($265). .5 million).
The European Commission imposed the fine in 2019, saying Qualcomm sold its chipsets below cost between 2009 and 2011, in a practice known as predatory pricing, to buy British phone software maker Icera, which is now part of Nvidia Corp . (NASDAQ:)
Qualcomm had argued that the 3G baseband chipsets singled out in the case represented only 0.7% of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) market and thus it was not possible to exclude rivals from the chipset market.
The Court “examined in detail all the pleas raised by Qualcomm and rejected them all in their entirety, with the exception of one plea concerning the calculation of the amount of the fine, which it considers partially well-founded.” according to the Luxembourg-based General Court.
Qualcomm can appeal on questions of law to the Court of Justice of the EU, the highest Court of Justice in Europe.
The chipmaker did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment from Reuters.
The company convinced the same court two years ago to dismiss a 997 million euro antitrust fine imposed in 2018 for paying Apple (NASDAQ:) billions of dollars between 2011 and 2016 just to replace the chips in all its iPhones and use iPads to block rivals like Intel Corp (NASDAQ:).
The EU watchdog subsequently refused to appeal the verdict.
The case is T-671/19 Qualcomm v Commission (Qualcomm – predatory pricing).
($1 = 0.8990 euros)
