South Korea to return KRW 63 bln to Qualcomm following antitrust ruling

South Korea's antitrust regulator has canceled part of a penalty of KRW 273 billion (approximately USD 243 million) it previously levied against US mobile chip manufacturer Qualcomm, Yonhap news agency reports. The move by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) came two months after the Supreme Court ruled that certain periods, during which Qualcomm offered exclusive rebates to LG Electronics in return for the South Korean firm buying its radio frequency chips, should be excluded from the penalty.

According to the Commission, Qualcomm paid millions of dollars to Samsung and LG each quarter between 2000 and 2009 on condition that they use only Qualcomm modem chips and radio frequency chips for certain smartphone models. But Qualcomm paid rebates exclusively to LG from July 2000 to June 2005 and from January 2007 to July 2009 in exchange for it buying the radio frequency chips.

In January this year, South Korea's highest court ruled that LG's share in the smartphone market from 2006 to 2008 stood at between 21.6 percent and 25.9 percent, which is not considered a majority, and thus it is less likely that its increasing use of Qualcomm chips hurt fair market competition. The Commission has now canceled KRW 48.6 billion out of its original penalty of KRW 273 billion against Qualcomm, meaning that South Korea should return about 63 billion won to Qualcomm.