Qualcomm launches global antitrust campaign against Arm — accuses Arm of restricting access to technology

Qualcomm has accused its longtime partner, Arm Holdings, of unfair business practices, taking the matter to U.S., Europe, and South Korea regulators. The allegations claim that Arm limits access to its technologies and changes licensing models in a bid to harm competition, according to Bloomberg. Arm denies the accusations.

Qualcomm has reportedly filed secret complaints against Arm with the European Commission, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Korea Fair Trade Commission. Qualcomm argues that Arm's open licensing approach helped build a robust hardware and software ecosystem. However, this ecosystem is under threat now as Arm moves to restrict that access to benefit its chip design business, namely compute subsystems (CSS) reference designs for client and datacenter processors and custom silicon based on CSS for large-scale clients.

Qualcomm has presented its case to the EC, U.S. FTC, and Korea FTC behind closed doors and through formal filings, so it does not comment on the matter now. Arm rejected the accusations, stating that it is committed to innovation, competition, and upholding contract terms. The company called Qualcomm's move an attempt to shift attention from a wider commercial dispute between the two companies and use regulatory pressure for its benefit.

Indeed, the antitrust complaints align with Qualcomm's arguments in a recent legal clash with Arm in Delaware. Qualcomm won that trial, as the court ruled that the company did not break the terms of its architecture license agreement (ALA) and technology license agreement (TLA) by acquiring Nuvia and using its IP in its Snapdragon X processors for client PCs. Arm said it would seek a retrial.

However, Qualcomm seems to want to ensure that it will have access to Arm's instruction set architecture and technologies by filing complaints with antitrust regulators.

Bloomberg reports that before the Delaware court ruling in December, Qualcomm filed a formal competition complaint with the EU authorities, alleging that Arm was trying to limit license access while attempting to compete more directly. Arm has acknowledged receiving the filing and is preparing a reply. Qualcomm also reportedly met with FTC officials in Washington and then raised similar concerns with South Korea's regulatory body. Among the issues cited are withheld technologies and violations of existing agreements.

“Arm remains focused on enhancing innovation, promoting competition, and respecting contractual rights and obligations," an Arm representative said in a statement to Tom's Hardware. "Any allegation of anti-competitive conduct is nothing more than a desperate attempt by Qualcomm to detract from the merits and expand the parties’ ongoing commercial dispute for its own competitive benefit. Arm is confident that it will ultimately prevail in this dispute.”