Intel has lost its challenge to overturn an EU antitrust ruling on Wednesday, meaning it faces a 237 million Euros ($278 million) fine, reports Reuters. This is probably, finally, the conclusion of a very long-running antitrust investigation and legal dispute that kicked off in the early noughties. However, the scale of the fine is only about a quarter of what it was back in 2009.
Intel’s iron grip, AMD’s disadvantage
Intel was investigated by the EU for abusing its market-dominant position and anti-competitive practices between 2000 and 2008. In May 2009, the European Commission took a dim view of the evidence it had uncovered. The Santa Clara PC chipmaker was accused of stifling competition from AMD by conditional rebates and payments to PC makers and retailers – effectively trapping partners in its Intel Inside x86 web.
A very long legal timeline
In May 2009, the European Commission, which “acts as the EU competition enforcer” in Reuters reporting parlance, decided to levy a record fine of 1.06 billion Euros ($1.24 billion) on Intel. As per our canned explanation above, this was punishment for its dastardly deeds disadvantaging AMD during the early noughties.
Intel would appeal the fine the same year. But the General Court upheld the Commission’s decision and fine in a 2014 judgment.
Something of a reprieve came Intel’s way in 2017, when the Court of Justice of the EU set aside the 2014 judgment to reexamine whether Intel’s rebates truly restricted competition from AMD.
Then, in 2022, the General Court annulled the huge $1 billion+ fine, due to what it saw as a prior incomplete analysis by the Commission.
Thus, some reassessments were needed, and these were completed in 2023-24. The Commission refocused primarily on what it saw as direct payments to OEMs to halt or delay AMD‑based products, rather than rebate schemes, to recalculate the scale of its Intel fine. This meant the fine was reduced to 376 million Euros ($438 million).
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