European Union: CJEU ruling on EU Commission v Qualcomm Abuse of Dominance Case

On 15 June 2022, the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has issued its judgment in case T-235-18 between Qualcomm and the EU Commission. The EC had in 2018 fined Qualcomm EUR 997 for abuse of its dominant position. In its judgment, the General Court has overturned the Commission's finding of abuse of dominance, as well as the attendant fine. The Commission had based its finding on the existence of incentive agreements in Qualcomm's dealings with Apple by which the latter had been disincentivised from switching to alternative LTE chipset providers. The General Court based its overturning of this decision on the basis of procedural irregularities in the Commission's investigation and because it considered that the Commission had provided an insufficient analysis to justify its finding that the agreements in question were capable of resulting in anticompetitive effects.