EU Ordered to Pay Reduced Legal Fees to Qualcomm After Antitrust Fine Appeal

The European Union's second highest court recently ruled that EU regulators must pay Qualcomm 785,857.54 euros ($851,634) in legal fees, a fraction of the 12 million euros initially requested by the U.S. chipmaker. The court, based in Luxembourg, found Qualcomm's requested amount to be excessively high, mainly due to concerns about the number of hours worked and the hourly rates charged.

This disagreement stemmed from Qualcomm's successful appeal against a 997 million euro antitrust fine imposed by the European Commission in 2018. Following the court's decision in favor of Qualcomm, the Commission was directed to cover Qualcomm's legal expenses.

Qualcomm submitted a legal bill to the European Commission in 2022, seeking 12,041,755.80 euros. However, the Commission argued that this amount was too high and suggested a substantially lower figure of 405,315 euros.

Qualcomm defended its claim, stating that the complexity and importance of the case justified the extensive work done by its team of 19 legal experts.

In its ruling on Feb. 29, the court rejected Qualcomm's arguments, emphasizing that the focus should be on the total hours worked for the legal proceedings, rather than the number of lawyers involved. Additionally, the court found that Qualcomm's submission lacked sufficient evidence, particularly regarding the correlation between hourly rates and specific tasks, as well as the necessity of the work claimed.

Consequently, the court determined the total fee, including expenses for law firm Quinn Emanuel and economic consultancy Compass Lexecon/FTI, at 754,190 euros and 31,667.54 euros, respectively.

The case is known as T‑235/18 DEP Qualcomm vs European Commission.

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