The EU starts hassling US tech companies again

2025-04-21 12:50 33

Facebook and Qualcomm look set for another round of scrutiny from the European Commission around their business practices.

According to the WSJ, Facebook is being asked to hand over internal documents to EU antitrust investigators so they can have a deeper look into whether or not it used dirty tricks against its competition. The allegation is that Facebook made use of its users’ data to skew the market in its favour by bribing partners to stay loyal.

That’s the sort of thing Qualcomm has got into trouble with the European Commission about in the past and, according to Reuters, lightning may be about to strike twice. Qualcomm revealed in a regulatory filing accompanying its recent quarterlies that the EU is investigating whether it abused its dominant position in radio frequency front-end chips.

It seems the EU is concerned that Qualcomm is using its near monopoly in 5G modems to strongly encourage customers to buy its RF chips too. Apparently sales of RF chips were a factor in issuing a better than expected forecast. As ever this will all drag out as lawyers and antitrust types get bogged down in the minutiae of it all, but it seems clear that the EU’s appetite for hassling US tech companies is undiminished.