By Grace Kim

The General Court of the European Union on 1 September 2022 upheld the bulk of a €997 million European Commission fine against Qualcomm. The court found the US chipmaker sold 3G baseband chipsets below cost between 2009 and 2011. International law firm Stibbe analyzed the ruling in its competition law bulletin.

What did the General Court decide?

The Luxembourg-based court dismissed most of Qualcomm's challenge to Commission case AT.40220. The Commission had found Qualcomm abused its dominant position in 3G baseband chipsets. The chipmaker priced products below cost to a major smartphone customer. The strategy aimed to foreclose British rival Icera from the market.

Judges endorsed the Commission's analytical framework. They confirmed the as-efficient-competitor test. The court found Qualcomm's pricing fell below the regulatory cost benchmark used to detect predation. Qualcomm won only a minor concession on the calculation. The court trimmed the headline figure by roughly 0.1 percent.

The court's endorsement of the as-efficient-competitor benchmark gives regulators a durable tool for assessing whether dominant firms priced products at levels an efficient rival could match in the same market.

The takeaway: the judgment largely endorses the Commission's predatory pricing theory from start to finish.

How did the case reach the General Court?

The Commission opened its investigation in 2015. Regulators built the case on confidential customer data and internal Qualcomm pricing documents. The 24 January 2018 decision imposed the headline fine.

Qualcomm appealed within months. The chipmaker argued the Commission misread market data. Qualcomm claimed regulators applied an unrealistic price benchmark for 3G chipsets. The General Court reviewed the evidence over four years. Judges rejected each substantive argument. The court found the Commission's evidentiary record sound and its legal analysis correct on the merits.

The Commission built its 2018 case on thousands of pages of internal Qualcomm documents, customer communications, and pricing data submitted under compulsory information requests from 2009 through 2011.

The takeaway: regulators built the case on hard document evidence, and the appeals court found that evidence sufficient.

What does the ruling change for practitioners?

The judgment locks the Commission's predatory pricing template into EU case law. Lawyers advising dominant technology firms now face clearer enforcement boundaries. Below-cost selling carries billion-euro exposure in chip and platform markets.

Counsel should review several pricing elements now:

• Volume-discount structures
• Cost-justification documentation
• Internal pricing memos
• Customer-specific discount terms

Dominant suppliers must document each below-cost transaction. The court signaled intent matters as much as price levels.

Stibbe's competition team analyzed the ruling for clients. The firm flagged the judgment as a warning for technology suppliers. Dominant sellers face stricter review when they discount below internal cost. The judgment narrows the room for pricing defenses in technology markets.

Counsel advising dominant technology suppliers should audit existing discount programs now, before regulators open the next formal investigation into chipset or platform pricing practices in their sector.

The takeaway: below-cost pricing in chip markets now carries clearer billion-euro risk.

What happens next?

Qualcomm can appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The appeal window runs two months and ten days from notification. The higher court reviews points of law, not facts. Success at that stage is rare.

The ruling will shape pending EU competition investigations. Regulators will follow the same analytical path in current chip and platform cases. The Commission's predatory pricing framework now carries judicial weight across the single market.

Companies that dominate technology supply chains should treat the judgment as a compliance deadline rather than a distant appellate ruling, given how clearly the General Court endorsed the Commission's analytical framework.

The takeaway: chip industry counsel should expect the same framework in pending EU investigations.