The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) in December made the record ruling against the San Diego-based company and its two affiliates for violating the country's competition act by refusing to offer licenses to chipset manufacturers and demanding high fees for patents used by smartphone makers.

The Global Competition Review (GCR), one of the leading antitrust and competition law journals, picked the FTC as the agency of the year in the Asia, Pacific and Africa regions for the second consecutive year in 2017, for its effort to root out antitrust practices, according to the FTC.

Also, the Qualcomm ruling was awarded the enforcement of the year prize by the GCR, the watchdog said. (Yonhap)