Qualcomm to Pay $75Million to Settle Shareholder Lawsuit

TapTechNews June 19th. A court document released by the Federal Court of San Diego on Tuesday local time showed that Qualcomm said it agreed to pay $75 million (TapTechNews note: currently about 545 million yuan) to settle a class action lawsuit filed by shareholders.

Qualcomm shareholders accused Qualcomm of artificially inflating the stock price from February 2012 to January 2017 by repeatedly describing chip sales and technology licensing as independent businesses, and this behavior of Qualcomm stifled the soil of free competition.

Qualcomm and its six related individuals, including former CEO Paul Jacobs and Steven Mollenkopf, were defendants, and while Qualcomm agreed to the settlement, it also denied any improper behavior.

Shareholders questioned Qualcomm's failure to fully disclose its patent licensing handling methods. At that time, Qualcomm refused to license some of its standard essential patents to certain competitors and in some cases made the purchase of its chips a prerequisite for reaching an agreement.

Previously, Apple, the US Federal Trade Commission, and other regulatory agencies had all sued Qualcomm on this issue, saying that Qualcomm's tying of the negotiation of standard essential patents with the condition that the company also buys its chips is an unfair business practice.

Apple said that Qualcomm sells chips (mainly basebands) at high prices by taking advantage of its monopoly position and also gives harsh and costly technology licensing terms. Qualcomm said these accusations are baseless, but its stock price fell by 13% in the first full trading day after Apple filed the lawsuit.

Unlike this class action lawsuit, basically, Qualcomm won in the above-mentioned lawsuits, while the lawsuit with Apple ended in a settlement in the end.