More EU Antitrust Charges Against Intel

The European Commission has filed new antitrust charges against chipmaker Intel, claiming the company abused its market position to shut out AMD.

On the same day that AMD swaps in a new CEO and announces a $1.189 billion loss for the second fiscal quarter, the European Commission has filed new antitrust charges against chipmaker Intel, alleging the company abused its dominant market position and paid a leading European retailer not to stock products with AMD chips.

According the EC, Intel used “its considerable muscle” to channel rebates to a leading European PC retailer, on the condition that the retailer offer only Intel-based systems. The commission also accused Intel of using incentives to persuade PC makers to switch to Intel chips.

The new charges are just the latest in a series of EU actions against Intel. In February of this year, EU officials raided Intel’s German offices on claims the company was abusing its market position; a year ago, the commission announced preliminary results of a probe looking into whether Intel was trying to shut AMD out of the market by offering rebates to customers and incentives to manufacturers who delayed or cancelled products with AMD processors.

In a statement, Intel said it is disappointed by the EC’s action and that the new charges amount to little more than re-iterations of complaints AMD has been making for over a decade. The company wrote: “The issuance of a second Statement of Objections suggests that the Commission supports AMD’s position that Intel should be prevented from competing fairly and offering price discounts which have resulted in lower prices for consumers.”

Intel has eight weeks to respond to the new charges.