According to Bloomberg News on December 15th, Beijing time, an anonymous source informed that Qualcomm may receive an EU fine in the next few weeks because of the “bribe” offered to Apple. The exchange condition is that the latter will not purchase chips from its competitors.

The person familiar with the matter said that the European Union believes that Qualcomm has violated the antitrust laws by making payments to Apple, which prompted the latter to only purchase its own chips. It is reported that EU officials are studying a ruling involving Intel in September - the cause is similar to the Gaotong case, and it is possible to announce that Qualcomm will violate the anti-monopoly law as early as next month. However, this informed person did not disclose the possible amount of fines that have received widespread attention.

Qualcomm and Apple have already taken legal battles in many countries and regions around the world due to patent licensing. Apple is developing iPhones and iPads that do not use Qualcomm chips. In addition, Qualcomm also faces Broadcom’s hostile takeover.

Apple claims that the patent fees charged by Qualcomm are too high, illegally exploiting its dominant position in the field of mobile phone chips. Qualcomm retorted that in order to threaten it to lower its royalties, Apple lied to the regulator.

Qualcomm, Apple, and the European Commission did not comment on this.

The European Union had previously stated that Qualcomm’s payment to an unnamed smartphone manufacturer was not conducive to market competition because it affected the motivation of mobile phone manufacturers to purchase chips from other chip makers and could jeopardize the innovation of UMTS and LTE baseband chips.

The Qualcomm case has similarities with the European Union’s 2009 Intel case. The European Union ruled at that time that Intel offered rebates to computer manufacturers to pay money to a retailer in order to suppress a much smaller chip manufacturer. The European Court of Justice has asked the lower court to review Intel’s appeal and consider whether the European Commission can determine that they are illegal without proving that Intel’s actions harmed the interests of competitors.

The unfavorable ruling will mark the first formal completion of the investigation of Qualcomm by the European Union. In 2009, EU officials suspended the investigation of the patent authorization of Qualcomm's 3G mobile phones. The investigation did not find that Qualcomm had violated the anti-monopoly law and Qualcomm had not been penalized for this.

The EU's second investigation into Qualcomm is underway, focusing on whether or not Qualcomm intentionally sold chips at below-cost prices during the period 2009-2011 against competitor Icera, which has been acquired by Nvidia.

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