Qualcomm comes out victorious in EU antitrust battle as Vestager’s Big Tech crack down starts flailing

Qualcomm has come out victorious this morning after the chipmaker won its battle against a €997m (£862m) fine imposed by EU antitrust regulators four years ago, raising eyebrows for the bloc’s attack on Big Tech dominance.

The fine was imposed by European Commission after the US firm paid billions of dollars to Apple from 2011 to 2016 to use only Qualcomm chips in all its iPhones and iPads. This was aimed at blocking out rivals, including chip titan Intel Corp.

The decision against Qualcomm sits against the backdrop of EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s major crackdown on large tech firms, and ‘uncompetitive’ practices.

In a blow to this emerging regime, Europe’s second-highest court, The General Court, annulled the 2018 EU finding and questioned its handling of the case.

“The Commission did not provide an analysis which makes it possible to support the findings that the payments concerned had actually reduced Apple’s incentives to switch to Qualcomm’s competitors in order to obtain supplies of LTE chipsets for certain iPad models to be launched in 2014 and 2015,” the court said.

The EU enforcer can now appeal to the EU Court of Justice, but the decision is a signal that Vestager’s competition supremacy may be dwindling.

Back in January, she lost the backing for a €1.06bn fine on Intel 12 years ago for squeezing rival Advanced Micro Devices.