The European Commission fined Intel 376.36 million Euros ($400 million) for preventing competitors from selling devices running x86 CPUs. Thus, part of the company’s long-running court battle with the European authority came to an end. As you may remember, the Commission imposed a record fine of 1.06 billion Euros ($1.13 billion) on the chipmaker in 2009 after finding that Intel had abused its dominant position in the market.In 2009, the company was found to be giving secret discounts and incentives to manufacturers such as HP, Dell and Lenovo to buy all or almost all of their processors from Intel. The commission also found that Intel paid manufacturers to delay or completely stop the release of products powered by rivals’ CPUs.
The case has since been appealed to various European courts, with both parties appealing the decisions. In 2017, the highest court of the European Union decided to re-examine the penalty on the grounds that the Commission did not make an economic assessment of how Intel’s activities affected its rivals’ ability to compete against it.
Intel blocked AMD: The process in the EU continues
The General Court, Europe’s second-highest court, ruled last year that the Commission had not actually conducted an analysis of the company’s rebate plan. As a result, it was concluded that it could not be determined how the incentives offered by Intel affected its competitors. The Commission also canceled Intel’s €1.06 billion fine, saying it was not in a position to determine how much it should actually pay. However, previous courts’ rulings that the company’s “bare restraints” (i.e., paying PC makers to stop or delay the launch of certain products containing competing x86 CPUs and limit the sales channels available for those products) violated EU law were upheld.
In its statement, the European Commission gave several examples of how Intel blocked the sale of rival products. It apparently paid HP to sell AMD-powered enterprise desktops between November 2002 and May 2005 exclusively to small and medium-sized businesses and through direct distribution channels. He also paid Acer to delay the release of an AMD-based laptop from September 2003 to January 2004. Additionally, Intel paid Lenovo to delay the launch of AMD-based laptops by half a year.
“With today’s decision, the Commission has fined Intel again for merely applying bare restrictions,” the European authority wrote. The process continues between the EU and Intel on other issues dating back to 2009.
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