Jake Widman
Thursday, 14 May 2009 01:23
IT Policy -
Regulation
Page 1 of 4
The European Commission has fined Intel more than 1 billion Euros for anticompetitive practices in Europe.
The action, sparked by complaints from rival chipmaker AMD, focused on practices Intel used to keep competitors out of the European market.
The announcement quoted commissioner Neelie Kroes: "Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years. Such a serious and sustained violation of the EU's antitrust rules cannot be tolerated."
The Commission determined that between 2002 and 2007, Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturers so long as they bought all their x86 chips from Intel, and paid a retailer directly to stock only computers with Intel inside.
In addition, the company paid computer manufacturers to restrict the supply of machines using competitors' chips.
The Commission found that these practices harmed Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and NEC.
Intel has been given three months to pony up the 1.06 billion-Euro fine, the largest antitrust penalty the Commission has ever levied.
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