Qualcomm says Arm sabotaged its Meta deal and wants to stop paying royalties for five years

Qualcomm and Arm Holdings returned to federal court in Delaware on Monday, with Qualcomm accusing its chip-licensing partner of withholding testing tools and publicising a termination threat as it negotiated a chip deal with Meta Platforms.

At the centre of the case is a practical piece of the chip business: access to the tools needed to test designs. Qualcomm says Arm was contractually required to provide those tools. It also says Arm disclosed a 2024 termination threat to journalists in a manner that undermined Qualcomm’s talks with Meta.

Qualcomm wants the court to let it stop paying royalties to Arm for up to five years, a remedy it says could be worth billions of dollars.

Arm, which is owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group, rejects the breach-of-contract claims. It says Qualcomm’s claimed damage to its chip-deal negotiations is too speculative to support a recovery.

Arm has also argued that Qualcomm should be prevented from collecting damages over the alleged media leak because Qualcomm disclosed confidential information to reporters about antitrust investigations involving Arm.

Judge Maryellen Noreika is deciding whether to strike the five-year term underlying Qualcomm’s damages claim. The five-day jury trial is proceeding alongside a separate bench trial before Noreika on whether Arm met a duty to bargain in good faith over the next generation of its chip architecture.

The case is the latest stage of a dispute that has run since 2022, when Arm sued Qualcomm over an alleged breach of a licence agreement connected to Qualcomm’s acquisition of chip startup Nuvia. Qualcomm filed this complaint in April 2024.

A jury found for Qualcomm on the central claims in the Nuvia case in December 2024, and a federal court upheld that verdict in September 2025. Arm has appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

The companies’ licensing agreement remains in force until 2033, binding together two businesses even as they argue in court. Qualcomm is identified as one of Arm’s largest customers.

Qualcomm said it has recorded no accrual for potential losses from the dispute because it does not consider a loss probable at this time.