The Fair Trade Commission of could fine Qualcomm Inc. up to 1 trillion Korean won forallegedly violating fair trade rules, TheKorea Times reported July 15.
The antitrust agency is setto make a final ruling after a 17-month investigation into Qualcomm's businesspractices. That decision is slated to be revealed on July 20,according to a separate report by TheKorea Herald.
The FTC launched the investigation in February 2015 aftercomplaints were filed against Qualcomm, the KoreaTimes report said. Qualcomm allegedly charged Korean manufacturersincluding Samsung Electronics Co.Ltd. and LGElectronics Inc. excessively high licensing fees for its patents,which brought in about $1.27 billion annually to the U.S. company.
As of July 15, US$1was equivalent to 1,136.96 Korean won.