Blow for EU competition tsar as tech fine overturned
MARGRETHE VESTAGER, the European Union’s competition chief, has been dealt another setback in her battle against US tech giants after a court overturned an £864m fine for the chipmaker Qualcomm.
The EU’S General Court reversed the 2018 fine against Qualcomm, which was issued for pressuring Apple to buy its 4G chips entirely from the US company instead of rivals such as Intel.
It is the latest in a growing string of legal defeats for the EU, which has pursued Silicon Valley giants for competition law breaches but has seen several overturned.
Earlier this year, Intel overturned a €1.1bn (£950m) fine issued for excluding competitors, while the European Commission has also seen orders for Amazon and Apple to pay more tax blocked by the court.
Ms Vestager fined Qualcomm €997m in 2018, claiming the company had paid Apple billions of dollars to ensure it only bought cellular modems from the company. She said the payments had meant that “no rival could effectively challenge Qualcomm” and that the company’s actions “denied consumers and other companies more choice and innovation”.
But yesterday the General Court, based in Luxembourg, criticised the decision, saying it had involved a “number of procedural irregularities”.
“The commission did not provide an analysis which makes it possible to support the findings that the payments concerned had actually reduced Apple’s incentives to switch to Qualcomm’s competitors”, the court said.
Qualcomm had claimed that Apple had been allowed to “dictate the evidence, narrative and conclusions” during the case.
The commission, which has the right to appeal against the decision, said it would carefully study the judgment. The EU did win a legal victory last November, when Google failed to overturn a €2.4bn ruling for abusing its search engine dominance.
The consumer group Which? has sued Qualcomm in the UK for charging smartphone makers inflated fees, saying they are then passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.