Following an investigation into wireless chipmaker Qualcomm, Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has concluded that certain of the company’s business practices are in violation of Taiwan’s antitrust law, and have imposed a fine of approximately $773 million.
FTC launched the investigation in 2015 to see whether Qualcomm’s patent licensing arrangements violate the country’s Fair Trade Act and now it has been determined that Qualcomm violated the antitrust regulations for at least seven years. During this time the company collected just over $13 billion in licensing fees from Taiwan-based companies, as well as local companies also purchasing Qualcomm’s baseband chips for around $30 billion. FTC has also ordered Qualcomm to remove deals that force competitors to provide sensitive information such as chip prices, customer names and shipment volumes.
Qualcomm has issued a statement saying the company disagrees with the decision and intends to appeal the decision to Taiwan’s courts after receiving the FTC’s formal decision. Qualcomm also claimed that the fine bears no rational relationship to Qualcomm’s revenues or activities in Taiwan, and Qualcomm will appeal the amount of the fine and the method used to calculate it.
