Intel fined €376 million by European Commission in long-running antitrust case
The fine is smaller than that imposed in 2009 but US chipmaker is "evaluating its options"
The European Commission on Friday announced that it has re-imposed a fine of €376 million on Intel in a long-running case stemming from the US chipmaker's practice to block rivals. It is the latest move in a thoroughly epic saga strecthing back to the early noughties.
A record fine of €1.06 billion was levied in 2009 by the European competition regulator, but was overturned last year by the Luxembourg-based General Court. This initial fine was imposed after the EU Commission accused the US chipmaker of engaging in anticompetitive practices by exploiting its dominant position in the global x86 microprocessor market. It said Intel used a strategy to exclude competitors using rebates and sales restrictions.
The Commission's decision was rooted in the discovery that Intel had employed two distinct illegal practices.
Firstly, the chipmaker provided wholly or partially hidden rebates to computer manufacturers on condition that they purchased all, or almost all, their x86 CPUs from Intel (commonly referred to as 'conditional rebates'). Secondly, Intel allegedly offered financial incentives to computer manufacturers to delay or impede the release of products featuring competitors' x86 CPUs and restrict the distribution channels for these products (so-called 'naked restrictions'). The original complaint was brought by rival manufacturer AMD.
Last year, the EU's General Court issued a partial annulment of the European Commission's 2009 decision, specifically regarding the Commission's conclusions about Intel's conditional rebates. However, the Court upheld European Commission's decision that Intel's implementation of 'naked restrictions' constituted an abuse of its dominant market position under EU's competition regulations.
The Court said it was unable to determine how the total fine could be divided up between the two offenses, thereby necessitating the European Commission to decide a new penalty amount.
On Friday, the European Commission said it was re-imposing a fine for Intel's practices spanning from November 2002 to December 2006.
"The lower fine imposed by today's decision reflects the narrower scope of the infringement compared to the 2009 Commission decision," the European watchdog said.
Intel said it was evaluating its options in response to the European Commission's latest decision.
"We are reviewing today's decision and fine, which follows from the European General Court's 2022 vindication of Intel in the key contentions of the case, resulting in the return to Intel of the original 2009 fine of 1.06 billion Euros," the company said.
"This decision relates to the smaller part of the original 2009 European Commission Decision. While we are disappointed in a fine of this amount, we continue to focus on our future investments in the EU, and on cooperating with the EC in helping advance Europe's semiconductor industry."
The EU's competition commissioner, Didier Reynders, stated on Friday that Intel had made payments to its customers with the intention of restricting, delaying, or cancelling "the sale of products containing computer chips from its primary competitor."
"This is illegal under our competition rules."
"Our decision shows the commission's commitment to ensure that very serious antitrust breaches do not go unsanctioned," he added.
In recent years, the European Union has imposed a series of fines on major tech companies, leading to a flurry of legal disputes.
Brussels has imposed fines totalling over eight billion euros on Google alone for its abuse of its dominant market position between 2017 and 2019. Last year, France's competition regulator also fined Google €220 million for a series of anti-competitive practices, including abusing its dominant position to favour its own ad servers for publishers and app developers.