Commitments and Contingencies (Notes) |
6 Months Ended |
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Mar. 28, 2021 | |
Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract] | |
Commitments and Contingencies | Commitments and Contingencies Legal and Regulatory Proceedings.
Consolidated Securities Class Action Lawsuit: On January 23, 2017 and January 26, 2017, securities class action complaints were filed by purported stockholders of us in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California against us and certain of our current and former officers and directors. The complaints alleged, among other things, that we violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, by
making false and misleading statements and omissions of material fact in connection with certain allegations that we are or were engaged in anticompetitive conduct. The complaints sought unspecified damages, interest, fees and costs. On May 4, 2017, the court consolidated the two actions and appointed lead plaintiffs. On July 3, 2017, the lead plaintiffs filed a consolidated amended complaint asserting the same basic theories of liability and requesting the same basic relief. On September 1, 2017, we filed a motion to dismiss the consolidated amended complaint. On March 18, 2019, the court denied our motion to dismiss. On January 15, 2020, we filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings. The court has not yet ruled on our motion. We believe the plaintiffs’ claims are without merit.
In re Qualcomm/Broadcom Merger Securities Litigation: On June 8, 2018 and June 26, 2018, securities class action complaints were filed by purported stockholders of us in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California against us and two of our then current officers. The complaints alleged, among other things, that we violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, by failing to disclose that we had submitted a notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in January 2018. The complaints sought unspecified damages, interest, fees and costs. On January 22, 2019, the court appointed the lead plaintiff in the action. On March 18, 2019, the plaintiffs filed a consolidated complaint asserting the same basic theories of liability and requesting the same basic relief. On May 10, 2019, we filed a motion to dismiss the consolidated complaint, and on March 10, 2020, the court granted our motion. On May 11, 2020, the plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint, and on October 8, 2020, the court granted our motion to dismiss the case with prejudice. On November 7, 2020, the plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal. No hearing date has been set. We believe the plaintiffs’ claims are without merit.
Consumer Class Action Lawsuits: Since January 18, 2017, a number of consumer class action complaints have been filed against us in the United States District Courts for the Southern and Northern Districts of California, each on behalf of a putative class of purchasers of cellular phones and other cellular devices. In April 2017, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred the cases that had been filed in the Southern District of California to the Northern District of California. On May 15, 2017, the court entered an order appointing the plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel. On July 11, 2017, the plaintiffs filed a consolidated amended complaint alleging that we violated California and federal antitrust and unfair competition laws by, among other things, refusing to license standard-essential patents to our competitors, conditioning the supply of certain of our baseband chipsets on the purchaser first agreeing to license our entire patent portfolio, entering into exclusive deals with companies, including Apple Inc., and charging unreasonably high royalties that do not comply with our commitments to standard setting organizations. The complaint seeks unspecified damages and disgorgement and/or restitution, as well as an order that we be enjoined from further unlawful conduct. On August 11, 2017, we filed a motion to dismiss the consolidated amended complaint. On November 10, 2017, the court denied our motion, except to the extent that certain claims seek damages under the Sherman Antitrust Act. On July 5, 2018, the plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification, and the court granted that motion on September 27, 2018. On January 23, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) granted us permission to appeal the court’s class certification order. On January 24, 2019, the court stayed the case pending our appeal. On December 2, 2019, a hearing on our appeal of the class certification order was held before the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit has not yet ruled on our appeal. We believe the plaintiffs’ claims are without merit.
Since November 2017, several other consumer class action complaints have been filed against us in Canada (in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the Supreme Court of British Columbia and the Quebec Superior Court), Israel (in the Haifa District Court) and the United Kingdom (in the Competition Appeal Tribunal), each on behalf of a putative class of purchasers of cellular phones and other cellular devices, alleging violations of certain of those countries’ competition and consumer protection laws. The claims in these complaints are similar to those in the U.S. consumer class action complaints. The complaints seek damages. We believe the plaintiffs’ claims are without merit.
ParkerVision, Inc. v. QUALCOMM Incorporated: On May 1, 2014, ParkerVision filed a complaint against us in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida alleging that certain of our products infringed seven ParkerVision patents. On August 21, 2014, ParkerVision amended the complaint, then captioned ParkerVision, Inc. v. QUALCOMM Incorporated, Qualcomm Atheros, Inc., HTC Corporation, HTC America, Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., Samsung Electronics America, Inc. and Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC, broadening the allegations. ParkerVision alleged that we infringed 11 ParkerVision patents and sought damages and injunctive and other relief. ParkerVision has subsequently reduced the number of patents asserted to four, granted covenants not to sue on the other patents and dismissed the Samsung and HTC entities from the case. The asserted patents are now expired, and injunctive relief is no longer available. ParkerVision continues to seek damages related to the sale of many of our radio frequency (RF) products sold between 2008 and 2018. On March 26, 2021, the court issued an order stating that trial is extremely unlikely to occur before November or December 2021, if then. We believe that ParkerVision’s claims are without merit.
Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) Investigation (2015): On March 17, 2015, the KFTC notified us that it was conducting an investigation of us relating to the Korean Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act (MRFTA). On December 27, 2016, the KFTC announced that it had reached a decision in the investigation, finding that we violated provisions of the MRFTA. On January 22, 2017, we received the KFTC’s formal written decision, which found that the following conducts violate the MRFTA: (i) refusing to license, or imposing restrictions on licenses for, cellular communications standard-essential patents with competing modem chipset makers; (ii) conditioning the supply of modem chipsets to handset suppliers on their execution and performance of license agreements with us; and (iii) coercing agreement terms including portfolio license terms, royalty terms and free cross-grant terms in executing patent license agreements with handset makers. The KFTC’s decision orders us to: (a) upon request by modem chipset companies, engage in good-faith negotiations for patent license agreements, without offering unjustifiable conditions, and if necessary submit to a determination of terms by an independent third party; (b) not demand that handset companies execute and perform under patent license agreements as a precondition for purchasing modem chipsets; (c) not demand unjustifiable conditions in our license agreements with handset companies and, upon request, renegotiate existing patent license agreements; and (d) notify modem chipset companies and handset companies of the decision and order imposed on us and report to the KFTC new or amended agreements. According to the KFTC’s decision, the foregoing will apply to transactions between us and the following enterprises: (1) handset manufacturers headquartered in Korea and their affiliate companies; (2) enterprises that sell handsets in or to Korea and their affiliate companies; (3) enterprises that supply handsets to companies referred to in (2) above and the affiliate companies of such enterprises; (4) modem chipset manufacturers headquartered in Korea and their affiliate companies; and (5) enterprises that supply modem chipsets to companies referred to in (1), (2) or (3) above and the affiliate companies of such enterprises. The KFTC’s decision also imposed a fine of 1.03 trillion Korean won (approximately $927 million), which we paid on March 30, 2017.
On February 21, 2017, we filed an action in the Seoul High Court to cancel the KFTC’s decision. The Seoul High Court held hearings concluding on August 14, 2019 and, on December 4, 2019, announced its judgment affirming certain portions of the KFTC’s decision and finding other portions of the KFTC’s decision unlawful. The Seoul High Court cancelled the KFTC’s remedial orders described in (c) above, and solely insofar as they correspond thereto, the Seoul High Court cancelled the KFTC’s remedial orders described in (d) above. The Seoul High Court dismissed the remainder of our action to cancel the KFTC’s decision. On December 19, 2019, we filed a notice of appeal to the Korea Supreme Court challenging those portions of the Seoul High Court decision that are not in our favor. The KFTC filed a notice of appeal to the Korea Supreme Court challenging the portions of the Seoul High Court decision that are not in its favor. Both we and the KFTC have filed briefs on the merits. The Korea Supreme Court has not yet ruled on our appeal or that of the KFTC. We believe that our business practices do not violate the MRFTA.
Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) Investigation (2020): On June 8, 2020, the KFTC informed us that it was conducting an investigation of us relating to the MRFTA. The KFTC has not provided a formal notice on the scope of their investigation, but we believe it concerns our business practices in connection with our sale of radio frequency front-end (RFFE) components. We continue to cooperate with the KFTC as it conducts its investigation. If a violation is found, a broad range of remedies is potentially available to the KFTC, including imposing a fine (of up to 3% of our sales in the relevant markets during the alleged period of violation) and/or injunctive relief prohibiting or restricting certain business practices. It is difficult to predict the outcome of this matter or what remedies, if any, may be imposed by the KFTC. We believe that our business practices do not violate the MRFTA.
Icera Complaint to the European Commission (EC): On June 7, 2010, the EC notified and provided us with a redacted copy of a complaint filed with the EC by Icera, Inc. (subsequently acquired by Nvidia Corporation) alleging that we were engaged in anticompetitive activity. On July 16, 2015, the EC announced that it had initiated formal proceedings in this matter. On July 18, 2019, the EC issued a decision confirming their preliminary view that between 2009 and 2011, we engaged in predatory pricing by selling certain baseband chipsets to two customers at prices below cost with the intention of hindering competition and imposed a fine of approximately 242 million euros. On October 1, 2019, we filed an appeal of the EC’s decision with the General Court of the European Union. The court has not yet ruled on our appeal. We believe that our business practices do not violate the European Union (EU) competition rules.
In the third quarter of fiscal 2019, we recorded a charge of $275 million to other expenses related to this EC fine. We provided a financial guarantee in the first quarter of fiscal 2020 to satisfy the obligation in lieu of cash payment while we appeal the EC’s decision. The fine is accruing interest at a rate of 1.50% per annum while it is outstanding. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019, we designated the liability as a hedge of our net investment in certain foreign subsidiaries, with gains and losses recorded in accumulated other comprehensive income as a component of the foreign currency translation
adjustment. At March 28, 2021, the liability, including related foreign currency losses and accrued interest (which, to the extent they were not related to the net investment hedge, were recorded in investment and other income, net), was $292 million and included in other current liabilities.
European Commission (EC) Investigation: On October 15, 2014, the EC notified us that it was conducting an investigation of us relating to Articles 101 and/or 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). On July 16, 2015, the EC announced that it had initiated formal proceedings in this matter. On January 24, 2018, the EC issued a decision finding that pursuant to an agreement with Apple Inc. we paid significant amounts to Apple on the condition that it exclusively use our baseband chipsets in its smartphones and tablets, reducing Apple’s incentives to source baseband chipsets from our competitors and harming competition and innovation for certain baseband chipsets, and imposed a fine of 997 million euros. On April 6, 2018, we filed an appeal of the EC’s decision with the General Court of the European Union. A hearing before the court is scheduled for May 4-6, 2021. We believe that our business practices do not violate the EU competition rules.
In the first quarter of fiscal 2018, we recorded a charge of $1.2 billion to other expenses related to this EC fine. We provided financial guarantees in the third quarter of fiscal 2018 to satisfy the obligation in lieu of cash payment while we appeal the EC’s decision. The fine is accruing interest at a rate of 1.50% per annum while it is outstanding. In the first quarter of fiscal 2019, we designated the liability as a hedge of our net investment in certain foreign subsidiaries, with gains and losses recorded in accumulated other comprehensive income as a component of the foreign currency translation adjustment. At March 28, 2021, the liability, including related foreign currency gains and accrued interest (which, to the extent they were not related to the net investment hedge, were recorded in investment and other income, net), was $1.2 billion and included in other current liabilities.
European Commission (EC) Investigation regarding Radio Frequency Front End (RFFE): On December 3, 2019, we received a Request for Information from the EC notifying us that it was investigating whether we engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) by leveraging our market position in 5G baseband processors in the RFFE space. We responded to the Request for Information and had several discussions with the EC. In March 2021, the EC informed us that it had closed its investigation.
United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) v. QUALCOMM Incorporated: On September 17, 2014, the FTC notified us that it was conducting an investigation of us relating to Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA). On January 17, 2017, the FTC filed a complaint against us in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California alleging that we were engaged in anticompetitive conduct and unfair methods of competition in violation of Section 5 of the FTCA by conditioning the supply of cellular modem chipsets on the purchaser first agreeing to a license to our cellular standard-essential patents, paying incentives to purchasers of cellular modem chipsets to induce them to accept certain license terms, refusing to license our cellular standard-essential patents to our competitors and entering into alleged exclusive dealing arrangements with Apple Inc. The complaint sought a permanent injunction against our alleged violations of the FTCA and other unspecified ancillary equitable relief. On August 30, 2018, the FTC moved for partial summary judgment that our commitments to license our cellular standard-essential patents to the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) require us to make licenses available to rival sellers of cellular modem chipsets. On November 6, 2018, the court granted the FTC’s partial summary judgment motion. Trial was held January 4-29, 2019.
On May 21, 2019, the court issued an Order setting forth its Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. The court concluded that we had monopoly power in the CDMA and premium-tier Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular modem chip markets, and that we had used that power in these two markets to engage in anticompetitive acts, including (1) using threats of lack of access to cellular modem chip supply to coerce OEMs to accept license terms that include unreasonably high royalty rates; (2) refusing to license our cellular standard-essential patents to competitors selling cellular modem chips; and (3) entering into exclusive dealing arrangements with OEMs that foreclosed our rivals. The court further found that the royalties we charge OEMs are unreasonably high and reflect the use of our monopoly power over CDMA and premium-tier LTE cellular modem chips rather than just the value of our patents. The court concluded that our unreasonably high royalties constitute an anticompetitive surcharge on cellular modem chips sold by our competitors, which increases the effective price of our competitors’ cellular modem chips, reduces their margins and results in exclusivity. The court also found that our practice of not licensing competitors’ cellular modem chips violated our commitments to certain standard-development organizations and a duty under the antitrust laws to license competing cellular modem chip makers and helped us maintain our royalties at unreasonably high levels. Finally, the court found that incentive funds entered into with certain OEMs further harmed competing cellular modem chip makers’ ability to undermine our monopoly position, prevented rivals from entering
the market and restricted the sales of those competitors that do enter. The court concluded that the combined effect of our conduct, together with our monopoly power, harmed the competitive process.
The court imposed the following injunctive relief: (1) we must not condition the supply of cellular modem chips on a customer’s patent license status, and we must negotiate or renegotiate license terms with customers in good faith under conditions free from the threat of lack of access to or discriminatory provision of cellular modem chip supply or associated technical support or access to software; (2) we must make exhaustive cellular standard-essential patent licenses available to cellular modem chip suppliers on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms and submit, as necessary, to arbitral or judicial dispute resolution to determine such terms; (3) we may not enter into express or de facto exclusive dealing agreements for the supply of cellular modem chips; and (4) we may not interfere with the ability of any customer to communicate with a government agency about a potential law enforcement or regulatory matter. The court also ordered us to submit to compliance and monitoring procedures for a period of seven years and to report to the FTC on an annual basis regarding our compliance with the above remedies.
We disagree with the court’s conclusions, interpretation of the facts and application of the law. On May 31, 2019, we filed with the court a Notice of Appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit). On July 8, 2019, we filed a Motion for Partial Stay of Injunction Pending Appeal and a Consent Motion to Expedite Appeal in the Ninth Circuit. On August 23, 2019, the Ninth Circuit granted our Motion for Partial Stay. On February 13, 2020, the Ninth Circuit heard oral argument.
On August 11, 2020, the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion, which reversed the district court’s judgment, vacated its injunction and vacated its partial grant of summary judgment. The Ninth Circuit stated that the district court erred in holding that we are under an antitrust duty to license rival chip manufacturers and noted that our practice of licensing our standard-essential patents exclusively at the OEM level does not violate the antitrust laws. The Ninth Circuit also held that the district court’s “anticompetitive surcharge” theory failed to state a cogent theory of anticompetitive harm and that our patent-licensing royalties and “no license, no chips” policy do not impose an anticompetitive surcharge on rivals’ modem chip sales and do not undermine competition in either the CDMA or premium LTE chip markets. While agreeing with the district court that our 2011 and 2013 agreements with Apple were structured like exclusive dealing contracts, the Ninth Circuit nonetheless held that neither agreement had the actual or practical effect of substantially foreclosing competition in the CDMA modem chip market, and because Apple terminated these agreements years ago, the district court had improperly issued an injunction. The Ninth Circuit noted that neither the Sherman Act nor any other law prohibits companies like us from (1) licensing their standard-essential patents independently from their chip sales and collecting royalties, and/or (2) limiting their chip customer base to licensed OEMs. On September 25, 2020, the FTC filed a Petition for Rehearing En Banc. On October 28, 2020, the Ninth Circuit denied the FTC’s petition. On March 26, 2021, the FTC’s deadline for filing a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court to seek review of the Ninth Circuit’s decision expired. The case is now over.
Contingent losses and other considerations: We will continue to vigorously defend ourselves in the foregoing matters. However, litigation and investigations are inherently uncertain, and we face difficulties in evaluating or estimating likely outcomes or ranges of possible loss in antitrust and trade regulation investigations in particular. Other than with respect to the EC fines, we have not recorded any accrual at March 28, 2021 for contingent losses associated with these matters based on our belief that losses, while reasonably possible, are not probable. Further, any possible amount or range of loss cannot be reasonably estimated at this time. The unfavorable resolution of one or more of these matters could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition or cash flows. We are engaged in numerous other legal actions not described above arising in the ordinary course of our business (for example, proceedings relating to employment matters or the initiation or defense of proceedings relating to intellectual property rights) and, while there can be no assurance, we believe that the ultimate outcome of these other legal actions will not have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition or cash flows.
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