European Commission finds Intel guilty of stifling competition

Brussels: The European Commission has finally published its verdict in a non-confidential version of its Intel Decision. The decision adopted on 13 May 2009 states that Intel broke EC Treaty antitrust rules (Article 82) by engaging in two types of illegal practice to exclude competitors from the market for computer chips called x86 central processing units (CPUs).

Elaborating on the latest development, Tom McCoy, executive vice president of legal affairs at rival AMD, said, ''This is the first time Intel has had to confront now publicly available facts of its illegal behaviour and it won't be the last. The US FTC and New York Attorney General's continuing investigations and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) civil case against Intel will provide other clear demonstrations of Intel breaking the law - the next steps toward bringing consumer choice to the marketplace.''

The decision states that Intel made direct payments to computer manufacturers - HP, Acer, Lenovo - to stop or delay the launch of specific products containing a competitor's x86 CPUs and to limit the sales channels available to these products.

The Commission's decision also sets out how Intel sought to conceal its practices and how computer manufacturers and Intel itself recognised the growing threat represented by the products of Intel's main competitor, AMD, which with just 20 per cent has only a quarter of  Intel's market share of 80 per cent.

In 2000, AMD had filed a complaint with the EC against Intel's malpractices, but it was only in July 2007, the EC looked at three specific charges: that Intel "offered discounts to a major European personal computer distributor to favour its products, paid a PC maker to delay marketing a model line using [rival] AMD chips, and also paid it to use Intel's own microprocessors in preference".

In May 2009, the EC had find Intel a record $1.44 billion for abusing its dominance in the computer chip market to exclude its only serious rival, AMD. (See: EU fines Intel record $1.44 billion in anti-trust case)