Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/10
By: Liao Yu-yang, Chu Tze-wei, Chang Chien-chung and Elizabeth Hsu
Taipei, Aug. 10 (CNA) An agreement reached Friday between the Fair Trade
Image taken from www.facebook.com/Qualcomm
Commission (FTC) and Qualcomm Inc. that sees the recall of a multimillion U.S. dollar antitrust penalty, allows Taiwan to continue discussions with the American mobile phone chip designer on the direction of their future industrial collaboration, Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) officials said that day.
The ministry “welcomes the settlement and is willing to continue close cooperation with Qualcomm,” Economics Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) told CNA, adding that the MOEA will now talk with Qualcomm about its investment plans here.
The FTC announced earlier in the day that with the Intellectual Property Court’s mediation, it has reached a settlement with Qualcomm, under which the company can stop paying fines totaling NT$23.4 billion (US$763 million) while the agency will keep the NT$2.73 billion Qualcomm has already paid.
Under the settlement, the antitrust regulator has accepted the company’s commitment to undertake fair negotiations on licensing with local mobile phone makers and chip suppliers, to launch a five-year investment project covering 5G collaboration, new market expansion, start-ups and university collaborations, and to found an operational and manufacturing engineering center in Taiwan.
[FULL STORY]
