South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission is weighing whether or not to investigate Qualcomm‘s business practices. Regulators there believe Qualcomm may have abused its position as the largest chipmaker to charge higher royalty rates for its patents.
Qualcomm sells application processors and modems to smartphone manufacturers and generates the bulk of its money from royalty rates. Handset makers in Korea and other markets claim Qualcomm overcharges and China recently agreed. Earlier this week, Qualcomm agreed to pay Chinese regulators a fine of $975 million and change the way it calculates its royalty rates.
Korean regulators want to know if Qualcomm violated its antitrust laws. Such an investigation could have a domino effect, causing more regulatory bodies to pay attention to Qualcomm’s way of doing things. Qualcomm hasn’t commented on the situation.
