Intel to contest record fine
INTEL president and chief executive Paul Otellini said yesterday that the company will appeal against the record fine of €1.06bn (£1bn) that has been imposed by the European Commission for illegal rebates and other practices it used to squeeze out its rival, AMD.
“Intel takes exception to this decision. We believe the decision is wrong and ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor market,” he said.
The Commission found yesterday that the world’s biggest chipmaker paid computer makers to postpone or scrap plans to launch products using AMD chips, paid illegal rebates to encourage them to use Intel chips and paid a retailer to stock computers with its chips – and ordered the firm to “cease the illegal practices immediately.”
But Otellini plans to appeal at the Court of First Instance, the EU’s second-highest court.
The antitrust fine, imposed after an eight-year investigation, is the biggest the European Union’s executive arm has imposed on an individual company.
David Anderson, a lawyer at Berwin Leighton Paisner, said Intel was “facing a wall of regulatory resistance to its business practices around the world” with antitrust infringement decisions against it now in Japan, South Korea and the EU.
US authorities are also investigating Intel, whose microprocessors power eight out of every 10 personal computers.