European Union court strikes down $1.2 billion Intel antitrust fine

[Daniel Sims]

What just happened? Intel scored a win this week in its 12-year fight against a European Union antitrust investigation. A European court struck down a fine of over a billion dollars Intel had been hit with for alleged anticompetitive behavior.

This week the EU’s second-highest court in Luxembourg ruled in support of Intel and dropped a fine of 1.06 billion Euros ($1.2 billion) that the European Commission levied against Intel. The case goes way back to 2000 when competitor AMD started raising complaints that Intel was giving European retailers special treatment, in the form of rebates, for favoring its processors over AMD's.

The European Commission handed down the fine in 2009, alleging that Intel paid manufacturers to favor its processors from 2002 to 2007. The manufacturing OEMs included Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Intel appealed to the Luxembourg court in 2012, saying the commission lacked sufficient evidence, but it upheld the ruling in 2014.

In 2017, the EU’s highest court—the Court of Justice (EUCJ)—ordered the Luxembourg court to reexamine Intel’s appeal. The new ruling seems to have come after that reexamination. AMD may still be able to appeal the ruling to the EUCJ.

The state of New York hit Intel with another antitrust suit in 2009, which Intel settled in 2012 for just $6.5 million.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93146-european-union-court-strikes-down-12-billion-intel.html

 

[VitalyT]

It takes just one more bribery to the right person, to get away from previous bribery allegations. Financial crime in essence.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

What a joke. Let's hope the highest court in the land overturns this egregious decision. Intel's behaviour back then was disgraceful.

 

[Irata]

A textbook example of ‚crime pays‘. Who would have thought that paying retailers to not carry your smaller competitors‘ products was perfectly legal.

I‘d really love if other companies did the same (e.g. pay app store providers to not carry competing games / apps) citing the curt ruling.

 

[Watzupken]

That's why I feel judicial systems nowadays are just for show. Just so the nations can say there is "justice". How can sinful man be a fair judge? The role don't define the person, but it is the person that defines the role. The sad reality is that self interest overrides fairness.

 

[Goamist]

It's mind boggling that these lawsuits take decades. And the way I see it, it's only the lawyers that benefit from this.
As for the ruling itself - how come this court managed to find Intel innocent after two other courts ruled the opposite? Did it take Intel 10 years to produce the evidence that proved their innocence?
My guess is that they only now found the "right" people to "listen to their arguments"... It's no wonder that Luxembourg is the preferred country for tax avoidance.

 

[Lozzy]

It's a bit like the OJ trial. You know they did it, and you know they'll get away with it

 

[Athlonite]

After fighting it for this amount of time I wonder just how much the lawyers have made hmmmm probably the amount the original fine was for

 

[TeddyBertrand]

Intel is a great company, business wise, which means it is also rather evil, morally. Apart from all these "business competition" stuff, it sees workers as disposable assets.
Do you know that more than 60 percent of all employees fired by Intel in the 21st century were over 45 yrs old when the cutoff happened?