Have you ever had a fine removed? It feels good, doesn’t it? Now imagine that we have a fine pending for more than 10 years and it amounts to 1,060 million dollars and suddenly they take it away from you, surely that would be a good body. Well, that’s exactly what just happened to Intel and the fine Europe imposed on it. How did they escape and why are they innocent after the accusation?
The General Court of the European Union (TGUE) canceled on Wednesday the fine against Intel worth 1,060 million dollars that the European Commission (EC) had filed in 2009 against the manufacturer of processors – and now graphics – for abuse of a dominant position in the microprocessor market.
Precedents and the European Commission
The case escapes a 10-year investigation by Brussels which concluded that between 2002 and 2007, where Intel was clarified, it launched practices that hindered free competition. Those of Pat Gelsinger, who held a 70% market share at the time, created a Planning offering discounts to four of the biggest equipment manufacturers, in particular Dell, Lenovo, HP and NEC.
These have enjoyed succulent discounts and priority in tokens as long as they are engaged in a exclusive sale of X86 processors coming from Intel. Similarly, companies such as Media-Saturn, best known for its channels media market In our country, they made a commitment to Intel by agreeing that only the equipment supplied with their processors would be sold in their department stores. As if that were not enough, Intel, according to this survey, paid brands such as HP, Acer Yes Lenovo so that in addition they will stop and delay the released provided in equipment that incorporates processors from AMD.
Intel with these actions drowned AMD commercially, in particular reducing the competitiveness of Lisa Su at the time, having tied up with 4 of the biggest assemblers
In 2017, the court of Luxemburg, after Intel’s logical claim, joined the American manufacturer of processors and ordered the Court to carry out the relevant analyzes again. These analyzes concluded that the fine imposed on Intel was based on incomplete data and that what had been obtained did not legally demonstrate that its actions and rebates affected competition. With her the TGUE
The fine from Intel and Europe: two new FABs at stake
We are ending the year with half of Europe eager to see where Intel is setting up its new wafer factories. Countries like Germany, France or Italy sound like the favorites and in December Gelsinger he was even in meetings with senior French and German officials. This action of Intel is an American movement to try to stop the evolution of Asia -especially Korea- in the chip manufacturing.
This is not to say that the fact that Intel is announcing two mega wafer factories with a budget greater than 20 billion de dólares cada una y con una renovation de equitation completa cada 5 años, tenga algo que ver con la retirada de la multa, pero a Intel de seguro que les ha allanado el camino para su proyecto europeo, que esperamos que se commeience à concretar duree This year.