FTC lets Qualcomm get away with tortured statement

Four years after accusing Qualcomm of abusing monopoly power to charge phone makers additional licensing fees for its modems – and seven months after apparently losing that battle in a federal circuit court – the Federal Trade Commission has ruled to throw in the towel. He no longer plans to appeal to the Supreme Court, which means the case is over.

If that was all I probably wouldn’t write it for The edge since things are exactly where we left off in August. But then I saw the FTC’s explanation for Why he drops the deal, and … well, just read it:

Given the significant headwinds facing the Commission in this case, the FTC will not ask the Supreme Court to reconsider the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in FTC c. Qualcomm. The FTC staff did an exceptional job in presenting the case, and I continue to believe that the district court’s finding that Qualcomm violated antitrust laws was absolutely correct and that the appeals court committed a violation. error in concluding otherwise. Now more than ever, the FTC and other law enforcement agencies must boldly enforce antitrust laws to guard against abusive behavior by dominant companies, including in high-tech markets and those who involve intellectual property. I am particularly concerned about the potential for anti-competitive or unfair behavior in the context of standard setting and the FTC will closely monitor conduct in this area.

Let me clarify this: The FTC thinks it was right in this matter, thinks it was important, believes that “now more than ever” it needs to “boldly enforce antitrust laws” and is “particularly concerned By cases like this. .. and yet, it’s not even a question of whether the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case due to “significant headwinds”?

Maybe the FTC has bigger fish to fry right now, or maybe they’re afraid they’ll just simply lose again. It doesn’t come cheap to petition the Supreme Court, after all; in 2013, a lawyer who did so repeatedly said Marketplace that a petition can easily cost a quarter of a million dollars. Or maybe the acting FTC chairman just doesn’t think a vote to ask the Supreme Court passes, given the current staff split between two Republican commissioners and two FTC Democrats.

But the FTC’s tortured public statement does not say these things. It sounds a bit more like a cry for help from the US antitrust enforcement officer, a screening officer with a budget admittedly less than $ 350 million a year, and a screening officer who Repeatedly lets big tech companies go with a slap in the face – like fining Google pretty much. 37 hours of profit for breaking the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) with YouTube or fining a record $ 5 billion Facebook that was so low that Facebook’s stock price actually rose.

There are signs that the FTC could possibly change significantly, and my colleague Makena Kelly has written at length about them, including potentially changing the law to Congress to facilitate Big Tech prosecutions, and the strong possibility that the Influential antitrust specialist Lina Khan may soon help lead the FTC with the appointment of President Biden. In the meantime, the agency that thinks Qualcomm has a monopoly – the agency that we plan to destroy such a monopoly if it does – will simply drop this one.