Qualcomm hit with $1.23bn fine for abusing Apple partnership
Things just get worse and worse for Qualcomm. The European Commission has fined the company €997 million ($1.23 billion) for "abusing its market dominance" in LTE baseband chipsets. According to the Commission , Qualcomm prevented rivals from competing in the market by making hefty payments to Apple on the condition it wouldn't buy from anywhere else, which is illegal under EU antitrust rules. The fine bookends a long-running feud between Qualcomm and Apple. The two companies were tight back in 2011, when they signed an agreement stipulating that Apple would only use Qualcomm's chipsets in its iPhones and iPads -- a deal which was extended in 2013 to 2016. But towards the end of the agreement period Apple began scouting out alternatives, prompting reports that its next iPhone would be built without Qualcomm chips. By this point, though, the two were already embroiled in an intensifying legal battle that saw Apple piggybacking off a lawsuit by the Federal Trade C...