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EU: Intel continues to fight $1.2 billion antitrust fine

 |  June 23, 2016

Back in 2009 European Commission passed judgement that Intel had abused its dominant market position to stifle any competition from rivals such as AMD. A fine of $1.2 billion was levied against the chip making giant. Intel has been working to fight the fine and in June 2014 its first appeal was rejected. This week Intel played its last card – it filed a final appealwith the European Commission to get the fine decision overturned or at least the amount significantly reduced.

The investigation itself dates back to events that took place between 2002 and 2007. According to the Commission, during this time Intel offered ‘rebates’ to system manufacturers like Dell, HP, Acer and Lenovo on the condition that they bought at least 95 percent of their chips from Intel. After that, Intel is said to have imposed “restrictive conditions” for the remaining 5 percent, in order to keep AMD from growing too large.

Aside from the massive fine, the EU also ruled that the rebates Intel was offering to system makers were in-fact illegal. The EU Commission will make its decision on Intel’s new appeal soon and when it does, we will give an update.

Full Content: Hexus

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