December 6, 2019
Publication: Bloomberg Law
Qualcomm currently faces parallel antitrust suits by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Karen Stromberg, with both alleging the same monopolization scheme against the multinational semiconductor company. Benjamin Sirota provides his insights on the cases in Bloomberg Law, discussing how a ruling in either case will potentially affect the other.
As a former prosecutor with the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, Mr. Sirota leverages his years of experience within the industry, saying that a reversal of the lower court’s ruling in the FTC’s suit could in turn bolster Qualcomm’s fight to limit and potentially overturn the separate class suit against Stromberg, given that reasoning was similar in both cases.
Both Federal Trade Commission v. Qualcomm and Karen Stromberg et al v. Qualcomm are currently on appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The cases allege that Qualcomm unfairly used its dominant market position to force phone makers and other equipment manufacturers to pay more for chips and patent royalties.