By Natalie DeCoste
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided not to appeal the Ninth Circuit’s decision in FTC v. Qualcomm to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawsuit filed by the FTC against leading chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. alleged that the chipmaker engaged in illegal monopolization, according to people familiar with the matter. The FTC started the lawsuit during the final days of the Obama administration in 2017.
Specifically, the FTC alleged that Qualcomm crossed legal lines by refusing to sell chips to electronic device makers unless those companies also paid licensing fees on Qualcomm’s broader patent portfolio.
In 2019, the FTC won a major victory in the trial courts when the court ordered Qualcomm to change its business practices. Unfortunately for the FTC, a three-judge panel on the San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in favor of Qualcomm, claiming the FTC had not demonstrated that the company’s practices were anything other than lawful attempts at profit maximization.
On March 29 of 2021, the FTC announced it would not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review its appeals court loss.
“Given the significant headwinds facing the Commission in this matter, the FTC will not petition the Supreme Court to review the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in FTC v. Qualcomm. The FTC’s staff did an exceptional job presenting the case, and I continue to believe 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,” said Acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter.
Concern over tech monopolies has become a pressing issue for the U.S. government within the last few years. The DOJ has pushed forward in its antitrust lawsuit against big tech company Google that alleges the company has engaged in anticompetitive conduct to preserve its monopolies in the search and search-advertising markets that form the cornerstones of its empire.
President Joe Biden has also shown his commitment to harsher antitrust enforcement with Lina Kahn’s nomination to become the new commission of the FTC. Kahn s a law professor at Columbia University and a former Democratic staffer at the FTC and Congress. Khan was part of a group of House antitrust subcommittee staffers who wrote a report in October that concluded big tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Alphabet’s Google, hold significant and durable market power resulting in less innovation, fewer choices for consumers, and a weakened democracy.
Acting Chairwoman Slaughter has also indicated her ongoing commitment to antitrust enforcement as part of her statement about the FTC’s Qualcomm case.
“Now more than ever, the FTC and other law enforcement agencies need to boldly enforce the antitrust laws to guard against abusive behavior by dominant firms, including in high-technology markets and those that involve intellectual property. I am particularly concerned about the potential for anticompetitive or unfair behavior in the context of standard-setting, and the FTC will closely monitor conduct in this arena,” said Slaughter.
