Qualcomm is said to have filed a secret lawsuit against Arm with the European Commission, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Korean Fair Trade Commission, accusing the partner of unfair business practices. Arm sells chips and licenses its instruction sets to customers under open licenses to help build a hardware and software ecosystem, but it has not previously produced its own chips. However, the company is now developing a custom chip business, and the progress of this business is not going well.

In this context, Qualcomm claims that Arm is restricting Qualcomm's use of its technology and changing the licensing model to help Arm's own chip design business profit, but this behavior has harmed Qualcomm's competitiveness.

Qualcomm has submitted lawsuits to the United States, Europe and South Korea through non-public official documents. But Arm denied the accusations and said Qualcomm's move was an attempt to divert public and government attention away from the companies' commercial disputes and use regulatory pressure to benefit itself.

antitrust litigation

Prior to this, Qualcomm had already had legal disputes with Arm in Delaware, USA. In that lawsuit, which ended in Qualcomm's favor, Qualcomm successfully refuted Arm's accusation that Qualcomm could use Arm's technology for a chip startup it acquired without a new license.

At that time, Qualcomm pointed out that Arm was taking all means to increase its stock price and profits after being acquired by Japan's SoftBank Group. And because of its unique position in chip design architecture, it is using the behavior of monopolizing the market to seek personal gain.

Arm subsequently expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the trial and hoped to continue to appeal. However, at the end of January, the two companies stated that they would enter the mediation process as requested by the judge and then decide whether to retry the case.

According to people familiar with the matter, Qualcomm filed a competition lawsuit with the EU in December last year, accusing Arm of restricting Qualcomm's access to its licenses and concealing key technologies in order to compete more directly with Qualcomm. It is said that Arm has been notified by the EU and is preparing a response.

Qualcomm emphasized that Arm’s previous open licensing model has made many companies heavily dependent on its technology. Subsequently, Arm began to restrict its customers from using its technology. This behavior will jeopardize the currently prosperous chip industry.