Europe's highest court strikes down antitrust case against Intel for good

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Hot Chips: The European Court of Justice, which is the European Union's version of the US Supreme Court, has upheld a previous decision to cancel a billion-dollar fine against Intel. The company didn't infringe EU antitrust laws with conditional rebates for CPU resellers; at least, there is no definitive proof it did.

Intel is going through a rough time right now, and things will likely get worse before they get better. The US chipmaker needed some good news, and the European judiciary system obliged with a recent ruling in the chipmaker's favor. A new judgment by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) cleared Intel of any wrongdoing in a decade-long case, upholding a decision from a lower court by rejecting the EU Commission's attempt to fine it for violating antitrust laws.

The ECJ judgment officially supports the annulment by the General Court of the EU Commission's decision to punish Intel with a $1.1 billion fine for abuse of dominant position. The Commission – Europe's primary executive institution – fined Intel in 2009, stating that the company paid prominent PC manufacturers Dell, HP, NEC, and Lenovo to choose its CPUs over processors from AMD and other competitors.

In 2014, the EU General Court confirmed the Commission's decision to fine, ruling against Intel. Chipzilla appealed and asked the Court of Justice to re-examine the case, and the ECJ sent the case back to the General Court. The CG decided to take a closer look and ultimately flipped its opinion, siding with Intel and dismissing the Commission's fine in 2022.

This second ECJ decision is the final say on the convoluted antitrust case.

"The Court of Justice dismisses the Commission's appeal, thereby upholding the judgment of the General Court," ECJ's press release states.

Earlier this year, an adviser of the General Court said that the economic analysis by the Commission failed to prove Intel's alleged anticompetitive behavior.

Intel's rebates date back to 2002, meaning it took over twenty years for Europe's highest court to close the case. In its 2022 decision, the General Court also confirmed that Intel paid PC manufacturers to block or delay the launch of competing systems. For this "naked restrictions" practice, the court imposed an additional $400 million fine.

A spokesman for the European Commission said the ECJ statements focus solely on the CG decision concerning conditional rebates. Intel didn't appeal the General Court's judgment about naked restrictions, so the additional $400 million fine has become final.

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Europe's highest court strikes down antitrust case against Intel for good

 

[Axeia]

Well, that took a while. Funny how Intel used to have the money to pull off crap like:

the General Court also confirmed that Intel paid PC manufacturers to block or delay the launch of competing systems

Now they'll struggle to pay the 400m fine that it is gonna cost them. Even with that foul play they couldn't keep AMD from becoming the bigger company.

I'm very surprised NVIDIA never seems to have gotten investigated for similar practices. It's "partner" program which was public already seemed bad enough so who knows what goes on behind closed doors.

 

[BadThad]

The EU are experts are stealing America's wealth through ridiculous judgements and fines on our companies. It's litigated thievery.

 

[Burty117]

The EU are experts are stealing America's wealth through ridiculous judgements and fines on our companies. It's litigated thievery.

Or the other way to see it, America is really bad at keeping its corporations in-check?

 

[hahahanoobs]

For the record, "with prejudice" means the EU cannot go after Intel again for this at any time in the future.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

What a disgrace... Justice in the current model is a failure and a waste of money

 

[Dimitriid]

A bit sus that they decided they didn't need to act since at this point it could have put the final nail on intel's coffin and one *must* assume that they didn't go for a larger fine because of the irony of an antitrust case resulting in completely destroying a large corporation and thus making it work in favor of it's competitor's establishing a monopoly in the other direction.

Still it doesn't bodes well for the future: if AMD ends up outliving intel and becoming the dominant vendor (Looks at least plausible right now) they now know that they just need to attempt to delay EU antitrust sentencing until they're basically on their way out of business to avoid having any consequences whatsoever for monopolistic practices.

 

[Burty117]

What a disgrace... Justice in the current model is a failure and a waste of money

Agreed, Intel are 100% guilty here, they still do it today.
Has anyone researched up why there’s very few AMD ITX motherboards vs Intel? Or why it’s rare to see AMD boards in certain colours from certain manufacturers?

Steve from Hardware Unboxed talked about it in an interview, he was at CEX once and got an admission from a company rep that Intel pay them NOT to make AMD boards in certain colours. Same with the ITX form factor.

 

[Axeia]

The EU are experts are stealing America's wealth through ridiculous judgements and fines on our companies. It's litigated thievery.

Intel literally found guilty for a highly illegal market ruining tactic and your response is bad EU?

For most other cases than this (because this is illegal in the US as well) Maybe it's because the US is the country of behind closed doors lobbying whilst the EU tries to keep an open market.

Guess which one is good for competition and consumers and which one is good for lobbyists, a few select people and the companies.

 

[BadThad]

Intel literally found guilty for a highly illegal market ruining tactic and your response is bad EU?

For most other cases than this (because this is illegal in the US as well) Maybe it's because the US is the country of behind closed doors lobbying whilst the EU tries to keep an open market.

Guess which one is good for competition and consumers and which one is good for lobbyists, a few select people and the companies.

EU, yes, through litigation, fines and thievery. If they can't find something, they pass a new law and retroactively seek litigation. You have FAR too much faith in politicians and bureaucrats. They are not looking out for your interests, they are looking for $$$ to line their pockets.

 

[BadThad]

Or the other way to see it, America is really bad at keeping its corporations in-check?

Corporations are the life blood of America! They provide the products & services demanded by the population, millions of jobs and support employee 401k plans. That's why America is the most successful country on earth!

 

[Axeia]

EU, yes, through litigation, fines and thievery. If they can't find something, they pass a new law and retroactively seek litigation. You have FAR too much faith in politicians and bureaucrats. They are not looking out for your interests, they are looking for $$$ to line their pockets.

I'll take the government interests over company interests anyday. Companies are definitely not there to improve my life they just want my wallet. The government in theory at least is there to look after our interests.

Although I don't agree with all rulings I do agree with most of them. Also note that in a lot of cases the fine isn't the purpose. It's the punishment for not doing what the government wants done.

If we stick to tech news (we're on a tech site) then yes I'm glad with the recent rulings for example on batteries needing to be replaceable, USB-C being the standard, the right to repair*, having to allow alternative payments and stores.

*although companies like Apple do so with stupid limitations and prices making repairs unfeasible. So yeah if they further refine those rules in fine with that.
*Once again Apple still making so many limitations and rules so that they still want 27% of payments and a say in what's allowed is ridiculous. Let the stores decide what they allow and for transactions that do not involve Apple should not pay Apple 0%.
Sure Apple can give you big red flashy messages when trying to add a store that it's potentially dangerous and that they're not responsible for any software issues that may be caused by it.
It's your hardware after you buy it, if you want to install the Epic Store and play Fortnite and buy a skin to play like a banana and some gets 0 cents for that, that should be fine. Epic made the game, hosts the game, provides the download, provides the store, made the skin, handled the transaction. Some is not involved in the entire process other than showing epic to do so .

 

[BadThad]

I'll take the government interests over company interests anyday.

You've got to be kidding. That's very communistic. Perhaps you should move to China? The CCP would welcome you with open arms!