BlackBerry Wins Royalty Dispute With Qualcomm, Awarded Close To $1 Billion

BlackBerry will soon see a significant chunk of money coming its way. It has been involved in an arbitration with Qualcomm for quite some time. BlackBerry alleged that it was overpaying Qualcomm for the royalties due on the latter’s payments. The arbitration has now ended and the result is that Qualcomm will have to pay close to a billion dollars to BlackBerry.

BlackBerry and Qualcomm had both previously decided that they would solve the matter through arbitration rather than take the case to trial which would have no doubt been a costly affair for both companies.

The arbitration hearings took place from February 27th to March 3rd and while the matter was stitched up several weeks back, the public announcement has been made today. No details about the arbitration itself have been made public since the entire process was a private affair.

Qualcomm has publically announced today that it has entered into a binding interim arbitration award that requires it to refund $814.9 million plus interest and attorney’s fees to BlackBerry.

The issue discussed in the arbitration was that whether Qualcomm’s voluntary per unit royalty cap program applied to BlackBerry’s non-refundable payments of royalties due on sales of certain handsets from 2010 through to the end of 2015.

Qualcomm says that while it doesn’t agree with the decision, it is binding and not appealable, which means that it’s going to have to pay BlackBerry the money.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: BlackBerry, Qualcomm