Stepping up its public relations battle with Intel, the European Commission has published evidence from the Intel clients to back the fine levied by it on the chip maker.
The commission published a non-confidential version of its Intel decision, adopted on 13 May 2009, together with a summary of the key elements of the decision. The decision found that Intel broke EC Treaty antitrust rules by engaging in two types of illegal practices to exclude competitors from the market for computer chips called x86 central processing units (CPUs).
The move comes after Intel’s accusation that the commission has failed to meet the required standard of proof in its analysis of the evidence that it had involved in unfair trade practices to put pressure on computer manufacturers and retailers not to buy AMD’s chips.
In July, the commission had levied a fine of $1.45 billion after a long-run dispute on the grounds of antitrust violations. The charges alleged that the company was involved in secretly providing discounts to computer manufacturers who limited themselves to use more of its chips.
The commission stated that: “By undermining its competitors’ ability to compete on the merits of their products, Intel’s actions undermined competition, reduced consumer choice and hindered innovation.”
The commission claimed that Intel abused its dominant position in the x86 CPU market by implementing a series of conditional rebates to computer manufacturers and to a European retailer and by taking other measures aimed at preventing or delaying the launch of computers based on competing products.
The commission also released the details of the deals Intel had with Dell, HP, NEC, Lenovo and Media Saturn Holding in an attempt to limit the release of PCs based on products from its main rival AMD.
According to the commission, in one such instance, in an internal Dell presentation of February 2003, it noted that should the PC maker switch any part of its CPU supplies from Intel to its competitor AMD, Intel retaliation “could be severe and prolonged with impact to all lines of business.”
An email from an executive of Lenovo stated: Late last week Lenovo cut a lucrative deal with Intel. As a result of this, we will not be introducing AMD based products in 2007 for our Notebook products.
Intel rebates to Lenovo during year 2007 were conditioned on the PC maker purchasing its CPU needs for its notebook segment exclusively from Intel, the commission stated.
