Ingrid Lunden, TechCrunch:
The European Commission today announced that it would be fining the company €997 million, or $1.23 billion, for abusing its market position between 2011 and 2016, related to its relationship with Apple.
And:
“Qualcomm illegally shut out rivals from the market for LTE baseband chipsets for over five years, thereby cementing its market dominance,” said Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in a statement. “Qualcomm paid billions of US Dollars to a key customer, Apple, so that it would not buy from rivals. These payments were not just reductions in price — they were made on the condition that Apple would exclusively use Qualcomm’s baseband chipsets in all its iPhones and iPads.
Qualcomm will no doubt appeal this ruling. The size of this fine boggles my mind. $1.23 billion. That’s a lot of baseband chips.
“The size of this fine boggles my mind.”
Why? The size of the fine should be equal to or greater than the amount of ill gotten gains the company amassed through their anticompetitive behaviour. Otherwise there’s no disincentive against breaking the law. This principle appears to be one the EU gets better than the US. If anything, the fine is probably too small.
And all that, while the company’s also trying to fend off a takeover by Broadcom. I don’t know who to root for.
Yes. An we are talking about more than 6 years of abusive practices, so it makes $200M per years, which is not that high in regard of the amount of ill it did to the market.