Together with most of the mobile communications industry, Ericsson was sued in two class action lawsuits in the US in which plaintiffs alleged that adverse health effects could be associated with mobile phone usage. The cases were pending in federal court in Pennsylvania and the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. In the Pennsylvania case, the federal district court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims as preempted by federal law. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed this ruling, and in October 2011, the Supreme Court declined to consider the case. The plaintiff has no further right of appeal, and as a result, the Pennsylvania case is officially closed.

In the District of Columbia case, the plaintiff dismissed Ericsson from the case with prejudice in February 2011 shortly after an opinion by the D.C. Court of Appeals made it clear that the plaintiff did not have standing to sue Ericsson under the D.C. consumer protection statute.

In January 2011, a US company SynQor filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Ericsson Inc. alleging that Ericsson infringes five US patents related to bus converters. In February 2011, SynQor filed a motion for preliminary injunction seeking to prevent Ericsson from manufacturing, using, selling, and offering for sale in the US and/or importing into the US certain unregulated and semi-regulated bus converters and any Ericsson products that contain those bus converters. In May 2011, Ericsson and SynQor entered into a confidential settlement agreement that resulted in mutual releases and a dismissal with prejudice of all claims asserted by the parties against each other in the litigation.

In May 2011, Ericsson settled a US patent infringement lawsuit brought by an Australian company, QPSX Developments PTY Ltd. The lawsuit had been pending since April 2007 and involved Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology. Ericsson considers this matter closed.

In July 2011, a US company TruePosition sued Ericsson, Qualcomm, Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for purported federal antitrust violations. The complaint alleges that Ericsson, Qualcomm and ALU illegally conspired to block the adoption of TruePosition’s proprietary technology into the new mobile positioning standards for LTE, while at the same time ensuring that their own technology was included into the new standards. In October 2011, the defendants filed motions to dismiss the case.

The Swedish fiscal authorities disallowed deductions for sales commission payments via external service companies to sales agents in certain countries. The decision covering the fiscal year 1999 was appealed. In December 2006, the County Administrative Court in Stockholm rendered a judgment in favor of the fiscal authorities. The Administrative Court of Appeal in Stockholm affirmed the County Administrative Court’s judgment. The judgment was appealed to the Administrative Supreme Court. In February 2011 the Administrative Supreme Court revoked the County Administrative Court’s judgment and ruled in Ericsson’s favor, thus allowing deductions for sales commission payments.