EU fines Intel record $1.45b
European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes shows an Intel processor during a press conference at EU headquarters in Brussels yesterday. Photo: AFP
EU antitrust regulators fined US chip giant Intel a record 1.06 billion euros (1.45 billion dollars) on Wednesday, claiming it abused its stranglehold on the semiconductor market to crush its main rival.
The company hit back, saying it would fight the ruling with an appeal in EU courts, raising the spectre of a new antitrust saga between Brussels and a US technology giant after Microsoft's years of European legal battles.
The European Commission, Europe's top competition watchdog, accused Intel of using illegal loyalty rebates to squeeze rivals out of the market for central processing units (CPUs) -- the brains inside personal computers.
The Santa Clara, California-based company dominated the 22-billion-euro (30-billion-dollar) market for the ubiquitous x86 CPUs with a 70-percent share during the more than five years it was accused of breaking EU antitrust rules.
"Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years," EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said.
"Such a serious and sustained violation of the EU's antitrust rules cannot be tolerated," she added.
The commission said Intel had used wholly or partially hidden rebates to get PC makers such as Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and NEC to buy all or almost all their CPU supplies from Intel instead of US rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
"Naturally, the commission favours strong, vigorous price competition, including by dominant firms," Kroes told reporters in Brussels.
"However, Intel went beyond normal price competition by giving rebates to computer manufacturers on the condition that they bought all, or almost all, of their CPUs from Intel."
Intel general counsel Bruce Sewell defended the rebates, arguing that computer makers approach the company seeking reductions and stressing that "there is no evidence that we were pricing below cost."
EU antitrust regulators also accused Intel of paying computer manufacturers to halt or put off the launch of products containing microchips competing with Intel's x86.
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