European Commission Re-Imposes $400 mn Fine on Intel for Market Abuse

In a significant development, the European Commission announced on Friday that it had re-imposed a fine of 376.36 million euros ($400.26 million) on global technology giant Intel. This fine was related to a previously established abuse of Intel’s dominant position in the market for computer chips.
This decision followed a partial annulment by the EU’s General Court in 2022 of a 1.06 billion euro fine that the Commission had initially imposed on Intel back in 2009. The original fine was for attempting to stifle rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in the market for x86 central processing units (CPU’s). The court had dismissed the Commission’s findings at that time, particularly regarding rebates given by Intel to computer manufacturers that were seen as distorting competition.

In the latest decision, the European Commission stated that the fine was now based on payments made by Intel between 2002 and 2006 to computer manufacturers Hewlett Packard, Acer, and Lenovo. These payments were aimed at halting or delaying the launch of specific products containing competitors’ x86 CPUs.

Last year, the court confirmed that these payments constituted an abuse of market power, resulting in the re-imposition of the fine. However, the court had previously annulled the total fine due to uncertainty regarding the extent to which the penalty related to these anti-competitive practices.

Intel, a prominent player in the technology industry, will now have to address the repercussions of this re-imposed fine and navigate its implications within the competitive landscape of the computer chip market.