Qualcomm accused European Union investigators of being “biased” towards Apple when they ordered a 997 million-euro (US$1.2 billion) antitrust fine for allegedly pressuring the iPhone maker to only buy its 4G chips.
Stephanie Bodoni for Bloomberg:
The European Commission “engaged in a biased investigation” and allowed Apple to “dictate the evidence, narrative and conclusions,” Miguel Rato, a lawyer for Qualcomm, told the EU General Court on Tuesday, citing an internal Apple memo. This was “gross and indefensible maladministration.”
On the first of three days of hearings in Luxembourg, Qualcomm said the 2015 document showed how EU officials “dealt with Apple secretly on several occasions,” before concluding in 2018 that the world’s largest smartphone chipmaker had made illegal payments to Apple to ensure only its chips were used in iPhones and iPads.
The EU’s case “is about some $3 billion that Qualcomm paid Apple in return for exclusivity over Apple’s requirements for chipsets compliant with the LTE standard on which 4G mobile communications are based,” Nicholas Khan, a lawyer for the commission, told the court. Qualcomm’s agreements included “a carefully crafted combination of inducements through rising payments and threats through reimbursement obligations if exclusivity was broken.”
MacDailyNews Take: The EU, after failing to clawback $14.9 billion in a failed tax grab, just hit Apple with sham antitrust charges over App Store practices this week.
That’s some “pro-Apple bias” the EU has there. Raging.
The sooner Apple relegates extortionist Qualcomm to a life of supplying inferior modems to pretend iPhones, the better.