Last year, the General Court of the European Union determined that the European Commission had indeed failed to perform a thorough analysis of Intel’s rebate scheme. As a result, it could not ascertain how the incentives offered by Intel affected its competitors. While the General Court overturned Intel’s €1.06 billion fine, it upheld the previous courts’ decision that the company’s “naked restrictions” violated EU laws.
Examples of Anticompetitive Behavior
The European Commission provided examples of how Intel impeded the sales of competing products. It was revealed that Intel had paid HP between November 2002 and May 2005 to exclusively sell AMD-powered business desktops to small- and medium-sized enterprises through direct distribution channels. Additionally, Intel paid Acer to delay the launch of an AMD-based notebook from September 2003 to January 2004. Lenovo was also incentivized by Intel to postpone the release of AMD-based notebooks for six months.
