Qualcomm Faces Shareholder Class Motion Swimsuit Over Gross sales and Licensing Practices

A federal decide in San Diego has dominated that shareholders suing Qualcomm for allegedly hiding anticompetitive gross sales and licensing practices might convey their claims as a category motion.

The lawsuit alleges Qualcomm and its executives repeatedly described its companies of promoting chips and licensing its expertise to different firms as separate, when the truth is the corporate bundled them in a bid to stifle competitors.

The buyers main the case declare the misrepresentations artificially inflated the value of the wi-fi pioneer’s shares between 2012 and 2017.

Qualcomm has referred to as the allegations meritless, and the corporate’s inventory rose almost 2 factors Tuesday to shut at $123.80 per share.

U.S. District Choose Jinsook Ohta rejected Qualcomm’s argument that the gross sales practices had been already publicly recognized.

Qualcomm’s responses to antitrust allegations by regulators revealed “much more element” concerning the practices and the purchasers affected, she wrote on Monday.

The category covers buyers who purchased Qualcomm frequent inventory between Feb. 1, 2012 and Jan. 20, 2017 and incurred losses.

Qualcomm paid the Korea Honest Commerce Fee $912 million in 2017 for what the regulator referred to as unfair enterprise practices in licensing and chip gross sales.

The corporate additionally faces a client lawsuit in California alleging its practices violated state legislation.

Reuters contributed to this text.