EU’s Top Court Rules For Intel, Concluding Long-Running Antitrust Case

The EU Court of Justice, the highest court in Europe, ruled in favor of Intel, ending a nearly two-decade-long antitrust battle between the US chipmaker and EU regulators, Reuters’ Makini Brice reported.

The European Commission had fined Intel for providing rebates to computer manufacturers in exchange for buying the majority of their chips from Intel. I Photo: Luxofluxo Wikimedia Commons

“The Court of Justice dismisses the Commission’s appeal, thereby upholding the judgment of the General Court,” the court announced.

The European Commission had fined Intel for providing rebates to computer manufacturers, including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, NEC, and Lenovo, in exchange for buying the majority of their chips from Intel.

Regulators argued that these rebates were intended to block competitor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) from gaining market share.

While regulators generally view rebates from dominant companies as potentially anticompetitive, companies assert that enforcement should only occur if discounts are proven to have such effects.

Originally, EU regulators imposed a fine of €1.06 billion ($1.14 billion) on Intel, which was later overturned by a lower tribunal. Intel’s case received a further boost earlier this year when an adviser to the court suggested that regulators had failed to conduct a thorough economic analysis.