Commission fines Qualcomm €997 million for abuse of dominant market position

Re:Commission fines Qualcomm €997 million for abuse of domin... by masklinn on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @07:37AM (#16222213)

> Qualcomm made 122.5 billion in the last 5 years[2]. Making them pay 1% of that for breaking the rules isn't what I would call "taking this hard stance on antitrust".

1. That's their revenue not their net income, which looks to be 20~25% of revenue.

2. Indexing the fines on revenue from the domain/division where improprieties happened seems logical.

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Re:Commission fines Qualcomm €997 million for abuse of domin... by teamhappy on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @07:49AM (#16222267)

1. The fine seems to be based on their revenue. 1.23 billion are a little over 5% of 22.291 billion. (I don't know where the 4.9% come from.)

2. It seems logical but it isn't. In you're a rich kid that starts selling drugs your fine is going to be based on all the money you have, not just the money you made selling drugs. That makes all the sense in the world given that the fine is supposed to hurt you financially in order to change your behavior.

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Re:Commission fines Qualcomm €997 million for abuse of domin... by azernik on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @08:11AM (#16222365)

Corporations are not individuals; they can split and merge. You don't want your regulatory penalties to be gameable by restructuring the company (e.g. having a separate subsidiary handle European business).

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Re:Commission fines Qualcomm €997 million for abuse of domin... by grigjd3 on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @09:41AM (#16222996)

The idea here isn't to be punitive, but to change behavior. A smaller fine, with the possibility of more for continued misbehavior is far more effective.

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