The European Commission has just issued a fine of €242 million to Qualcomm for allegedly anti-competitive actions made by the company circa 2009-2011. The commission claims that Qualcomm abused its market position by using predatory pricing to push out competitors, selling some of its chipsets at a loss to Huawei and ZTE.

As a result of that predatory pricing, at least one of Qualcomm's competitors, Icera, is alleged to have been pushed out of the market. In May of 2011 Icera was purchased by Nvidia, and its baseband chipset operations were ultimately wound down in 2015, all of which the commission claims is proof that Icera was unable to compete in the face of Qualcomm's anticompetitive behavior.

The nearly quarter of a billion euro fine seems a bit light (and late) by European standards. Qualcomm has subsequently vowed to fight the fine, and intends to appeal to the General Court of the European Union:

"We cooperated with Commission officials every step of the way throughout the protracted investigation, confident that the Commission would recognize that there were no facts supporting a finding of anti-competitive conduct. On appeal we will expose the meritless nature of this decision."

Source: European Commission, Qualcomm