EU cancels antitrust fine of € 1.06B on Intel [pdf]

curia.europa.eu

8 pointsalibert3 comments

What a farce. I can't think of anything more nakedly and obviously anti-competitive than literally paying suppliers not to use your competitor's products. Which raises the question - if that's not enough, then what would be?

This is a procedural decision. The Court did not conclude that Intel didn't do anything anti-competitive, just that the Commission didn't do a proper analysis.

Now they'll have to redo it following the correct procedure, which will most likely result in Intel getting fined again.

I attempted to read it, but wasn't able to figure out what analysis exactly was missing or faulty. But I did give up at around page 3.

On the face of it, the case couldn't be simpler: Intel had >50% of the market, and paid to exclude AMD. If this case is taking over a decade to resolve (time during which the bad actor can further entrench themselves), then EU anti-trust law is practically useless.

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