- Intel was found guilty of anticompetitive behavior between 2002 and 2006
- The initial fine was reduced from €1.06 billion to €376 million, now €237 million.
- It’s unclear whether Intel will pay or plans to appeal again.
Intel lost its appeal against an EU antitrust ruling for anticompetitive behavior, but the original fine of 376 million euros due in 2023 was reduced by around 140 million euros to soften the blow, according to PK Press Club report.
The new fine of €237 million was deemed more proportionate to the scale and duration of the violations.
This case specifically concerns payments that Intel was found guilty of making to HP, Acer and Lenovo between 2002 and 2006 to delay or completely stop the use of AMD components in their devices.
Intel’s EU antitrust fine reduced
Despite the reduction in the amount of the fine, we cannot take this as confirmation that the case will have an end point. Intel was initially hit with a much higher fine of €1.06 billion in 2009, which was thrown out of court in 2023, making it an extremely lengthy legal battle.
“An amount of 237,105,540 euros better reflects the seriousness and duration of the offense in question,” noted the Luxembourg court.
In 2023, when the 2009 billion-dollar fine was reduced to “only” €376.36 million, Commissioner Didier Reynders said: “Our decision shows the Commission’s commitment to ensuring that very serious antitrust violations do not go unpunished.”
Intel’s payments to stifle AMD’s sales have been classified as “pure restrictions”, which the EU considers “an abuse of a dominant market position”.
After a troubling few years, declining sales, competition from Nvidia in the AI market, and a nearly $9 billion investment from the U.S. government to support American manufacturing, Intel is now preparing its next generation of Panther Lake laptop processors (Intel Core Ultra 3 series) aimed at high-end AI PCs.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan highlighted the importance of Panther Lake in “building[ing] a new Intel.”
The company did not immediately respond TechRadar Prorequest for response to the latest EU decision to reduce its fine.
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