It’s true, Apple’s Tim Cook is to be deposed as part of the Qualcomm countersuit against the tech giant on June 27. Apple is being accused of lying in order to spark government investigations and causing trouble for Qualcomm.
The deposition was set to take place before May 11, however, as no convenient date could be agreed, Bloomberg has now announced they are set on this new date. It is rare for Cook to become personally involved in legal battles, usually option for hiring attorneys.
The United States Federal Trade Commission accused Qualcomm in January 2017 of violating the FTC Act by abusing its patent portfolio to ensure they remained the dominant supplier of LTE chips for smartphones. Apple launched a lawsuit against Qualcomm for withholding $1 billion in payments. They claimed Qualcomm was charging unfair royalties for “technologies they have nothing to do with.”
Since then the situation has gradually escalated into a number of suits.
Qualcomm was Apple’s exclusive supplier for cellular modems for many years, until the release of the iPhone 7, when Apple added Intel to the mix. This was somewhat controversial as Intel’s intial modems were slower than Qualcomm’s, however, Intel’s technology is starting to catch up with the competition.