March 22, 2006

A lawsuit claiming Qualcomm didn’t deliver services it agreed to provide has been dismissed by New York state’s Supreme Court.

Russian telecommunications contractor Whale Telecom filed suit in November 2004, seeking more than $400 million in damages relating to its purported agreements with Qualcomm for services to be performed in the former Soviet Union.

The court dismissed the claims on the grounds that they were legally meritless, as well as barred by the applicable statute of limitations, according to Qualcomm.

Whale’s original complaint stated that the company had negotiated a deal to provide support services in several Russian regions simultaneously for Qualcomm’s billion-dollar project to break into the Russian telecommunications market.

Whale said it bulked up to meet Qualcomm’s needs, only to be elbowed out of the project.

Whale said it later learned that the project was going forward, but with contractors financed by Qualcomm and set up by former Qualcomm employees.

“Qualcomm is gratified that the court has found Whale’s sensationalist and inflated claims to be meritless,” said Bill Sailer, senior vice president and legal counsel at Qualcomm.

Whale could not be reached for comment.

Source: RCR