The US Federal Trade Commission is abandoning its competition case against Qualcomm, saying it will not take the final step possible of asking the Supreme Court for review the case. While the regulator won an initial ruling in district court in 2019, Qualcomm later had this overturned on appeal, and the appeals court denied a FTC request to rehear the case.
FTC acting chair Rebecca Kelly Slaughter said in the commission faced "significant headwinds" in pursuing the case. Nevertheless, she believes that "the district court’s conclusion that Qualcomm violated the antitrust laws was entirely correct and that the court of appeals erred in concluding otherwise".
The FTC’s 2017 complaint challenged Qualcomm’s unlawful maintenance of a monopoly in baseband processors used in mobile phones and other products. It asserted that Qualcomm engaged in exclusionary conduct that taxed its competitors’ processor sales, reduced competitors’ ability and incentive to innovate, and raised prices paid by consumers.
In May 2019, Judge Lucy H. Koh of the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of the FTC, finding that Qualcomm violated US antitrust law. In August 2020, that decision was reversed by a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which found the FTC had not sufficiently proven anti-competitive behaviour by Qualcomm.
