Unfair competition, Intel was fined EUR 1.06 billion in Europe

The European Union Court has just decided to uphold the 2009 ruling that the European Commission (EC) issued to Intel, forcing it to pay a fine of up to € 1.06 billion for antitrust.

According to the indictment, the EC discovered that Intel had abused its dominant market position to implement a policy of reducing prices for its customers if they chose to buy x86 CPUs from the company. The European Union court dismissed all of Intel's appeals and ordered the chip maker to comply with the provisions set by the ruling to stabilize the market.

It is known that Intel currently holds at least 70% of the worldwide CPU market, and this is an essential component of any computer. Before 2000, there were a few manufacturers of x86 CPUs, however, from 2002 to 2007, when abusing market dominance, Intel competitors only left Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD ).

The results of the EC investigation show that Intel has reduced prices for computer manufacturers Dell, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and NEC, and retail dealer Media-Saturn so they can only sell computers that use x86 CPUs due to Intel production. This limits users' freedom of shopping in choosing CPU vendors instead.

The EUR 1.06 billion fine imposed by the EC is determined based on the value of Intel's x86 CPU sales in the bill until the last year of the violation. Intel thinks this is an inconsistent number, but the Court thinks this is the correct number, which accounts for 4.15% of Intel's annual revenue, lower than the 10% revenue that the EC can impose. .

Intel will have 2 months to protest the court's decision by filing an appeal with the European Court of Justice.