Yahoo Finance Qualcomm exec says FTC 'rushed' antitrust lawsuit before Inauguration
Qualcomm Executive Chairman Paul Jacobs had some choice words on Thursday for the Federal Trade Commission, which filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the semiconductor company of engaging in anticompetitive tactics.
“We were in the process of discussing it with the FTC,” Jacobs told Yahoo Finance anchor Alexis Christoforous during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. “They … rushed the complaint out.”
The lawsuit accuses Qualcomm (QCOM), the dominant supplier of modem chips used by mobile phones, of maintaining a monopoly over those chips through a policy that imposed “onerous” supply and patent-licensing terms on phone partners, which include some of the largest handset makers in the world, such as Apple (AAPL) and Samsung.
In particular, the FTC said Qualcomm strong-armed Apple into using its modem chips in iPhones by lowering its patent-licensing fees. But if Apple purchased modem chips from another chip supplier, the FTC said Apple would face large penalties by losing out on Qualcomm’s rebate payments.
Jacobson contended the FTC “rushed” its lawsuit filing ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s Inauguration on Friday.
“That’s certainly what did happen, and we really weren’t given the chance to have the same kind of back-and-forth that we would have expected to have,” the Qualcomm executive said, adding the lawsuit had no legal backing or economic justification.
Qualcomm, for its part, has said it plans on fighting the FTC suit.
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JP Mangalindan is a senior correspondent for Yahoo Finance covering the intersection of tech and business. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
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