Thursday, July 23, 2009

Qualcomm Fined $208M In Antitrust Case

South Korea has fined San Diego's Qualcomm $208M in an antitrust case, the Korea Fair Trade Commission said today. The fine came out of a complaint that the firm used unfair business practices to dominant the local cell phone chip market. In a statement, Qualcomm said that it "firmly disagrees" the the KFTC decision that certain discounts and rebates it provides to its Korean customers violate Korea's competition law, and that it intends to appeal the decision and "continue vigorously to defend itself" against the claims. The commission said that Qualcomm charged higher royalties on its CDMA licenses to companies using competitive chipsets.