Qualcomm Fined $1.2b

Qualcomm, the heavy-weight American-based semiconductor and telecommunications company, is being fined €997 million ($1.2 billion) by the European Union for anti-competitive practices which  have been under investigation since 2015, Yahoo reported. The practices revolve around a contract  between Qualcomm and Apple between 2011 and 2016. The European Union has stringent laws governing business interaction and readily gets involved in cases where they believe a business is using their market position to create an advantage that damages their competitors by creating a monopoly-like situation. Investigators say that Qualcomm created a contract with Apple which provided substantial rebates under the condition that 100% of Apple’s 4G LTE equipped products used Qualcomm modems, effectively blocking competing modem manufacturers by limiting Apple’s ability to switch without incurring a significant impact on expenses. Evidence of this can be seen when Apple made the decision not to source any Intel 4G models shortly after Qualcomm warned them that the rebates would cease if they started purchasing Intel 4G LTE modems.