EU: Commission adds charge to Qualcomm antitrust investigation

On Thursday EU antitrust regulators charged Qualcomm with a new violation in a case accusing the company of selling chipsets below cost to drive out Nvidia and phone software maker Icera, reported Reuters.

Reuters report states that “The supplementary statement of objections sent today focuses on certain elements of the “price-cost” test applied by the Commission to assess the extent to which UMTS baseband chipsets were sold by Qualcomm at prices below cost,” the European Commission said.

The EU enforcer had in 2015 accused the world’s No. 1 chipmaker of abusing its market power to thwart Icera between 2009 and 2011, following a complaint from Icera.

Qualcomm can face a fine up to 10 percent of its worldwide turnover if found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules.

They were hit with a €997 million (US$1.2 billion) penalty in January this year for paying Apple to use only its chips in a bid to squeeze out rival Intel and others.

Full Content: Reuters

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