Tuesday, 28 April 2020

European Commission consults on Broadcom commitments




European Commission consults on Broadcom commitments



The European Commission is consulting on commitments offered by Broadcom to address abuse of dominance concerns in relation to its practices in TV set-top box and modem chipset markets.

The Commission launched its investigation in June 2019.

Broadcom has offered commitments to address the Commission's competition concerns at worldwide (excluding China) and EEA level.  These commitments include not requiring an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to obtain more than 50% of its systems on a chip (SoC) requirements for TV set top boxes, xDSL modems and fibre modems from Broadcom.

The commitments would apply for a period of five years.

Broadcom has stated publicly that in these “uncertain times” it would prefer to avoid protracted litigation.

The case was the first where the Commission imposed interim measures at the start of its probe and it expects to make greater use of these in digital economy cases.  The combination of interim measures and commitments would be another first.  Interim measures may well be appropriate when faced with a defined theory of harm; but they may be more concerning where they are used as a bargaining chip in commitments discussions.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_755

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