Intel Scores Big Win In Billion-Euro Appeal vs EU Anti-Trust Fine

The US technology giant Intel on Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022, scored a major win in a years-long dispute with the European Commission (EC) over a fine for the alleged abuse of its market dominance, Ciaran Sunderland reported for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

Photo Insert: The investigation into the matter began in 2001, the complaint having come from a major competitor of Intel.

The EU General Court in Luxembourg ruled the commission's analysis for the fine did not hew closely to the necessary legal standard that Intel's practices had anticompetitive effects, a court press release said.

The European Union's second-highest court canceled the entire 1-billion-euro ($1.1-billion) fine issued by the commission in May 2009, despite only dismissing the penalty in part. The ruling can be appealed to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the EU's highest court.

European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a Brussels press conference that the EU executive branch would "need to study in detail ... what we can learn from this judgment."

In 2001 the commission began investigating Intel after a complaint from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), another US technology firm and significant market competitor. The commission found that the US technology firm had worked to exclude AMD from the market by offering manufacturers generous rebates on the condition that they only use Intel computer chips.

The commission also found that Intel had paid major retailers, such as Germany's Media Markt, to stop selling products made with the chips of its rivals, and fined the company for its actions.

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