EU Court quashes billions in 2009 Intel fine for harming AMD
The fine that the European Commission imposed on Intel in 2009 for the alleged abuse of Intel’s dominant position has been annulled by the European Court of Justice. According to the Court, the investigation by the European Commission was incomplete.
The European Commission fined Intel in May 2009 for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the x86 processor market. The fine was mainly about discounts that Intel gave to Dell, Lenovo, HP and NEC. Manufacturers got this if they bought a large part or all of their x86 processors from Intel. Intel also paid the parent company of MediaMarkt and Saturn if they only sold computers with Intel x86 processors.
According to the European Commission, these agreements ensured that the companies remained “loyal customers” of Intel and that competitors could compete “significantly less” with Intel. This in turn resulted in less choice for consumers and less stimulated innovation, according to the Commission. That is why Intel had to pay a fine of 1.06 billion euros.
Intel appealed this judgment several times. One of these appeals was rejected by the European Court of Justice in 2014, after which Intel appealed again in 2016. The European Court of Justice now rules that part of that decision from 2009 is invalid, so that Intel does not have to pay the fine.
The Court ruled that the European Commission’s analysis was incomplete. For example, the European Commission had indeed shown that the discounts for Dell and HP could be an abuse of Intel’s dominant position, but Intel had counter-arguments, which, according to the Court, ‘could have raised doubts’ in a judge. The Commission had also extrapolated the results of a single quarter to a longer period at NEC, whereby according to the Court it is not sufficiently clear why the Commission did this.
Therefore, the European Commission’s analysis would not be enough to show that Intel’s contested rebates and payments actually restricted competition in such a way that Intel was breaking law. An appeal may be lodged against the decision of the Court.