E.U. Fines Qualcomm $1.2 Billion Over Apple Deal<br />In the latest decision, European regulators found that Qualcomm, the world’s largest maker of smartphone chips, abused its market dominance by preventing rivals from<br />competing in the smartphone chip market thanks to an agreement in which it paid Apple to exclusively use its chips in iPhones and iPads between 2011 and 2016.<br />“Qualcomm illegally shut out rivals from the market” for a particular kind of microchip,<br />Ms. Vestager said in a news release, “thereby cementing its market dominance.”<br />“Qualcomm paid billions of U. S. dollars to a key customer, Apple, so that it would not buy from rivals,” she added.<br />European antitrust officials hammered Qualcomm with a $1.2 billion fine on Wednesday, saying the American chip maker, whose technology<br />underpins much of the world’s mobile phone industry, had abused its dominant market position to squeeze out competitors.<br />“We are confident this agreement did not violate E. U.<br />competition rules or adversely affect market competition or European consumers,” Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm’s general counsel, said in a news release.<br />“These payments were not just reductions in price — they were made on the condition<br />that Apple would exclusively use Qualcomm’s baseband chipsets in all its iPhones and iPads.”<br />The European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, found<br />that Qualcomm’s practices had a significant, detrimental impact on competition in the region.
