Intel has made an important progress in the competition case with the European Union that started in 2009. According to Bloomberg, the Court of Justice of the European Union annulled the fine of 1.06 billion euros imposed on Intel. The court ruled that the EU Commission had not sufficiently proven that Intel provided illegal rebates to computer manufacturers. However, Intel’s legal battle in Europe is far from over; The company continues to defend against the additional penalty of 376 million euros imposed by the Commission last year.
In 2009, the EU Commission imposed a heavy fine on Intel, claiming that Intel was offering secret discounts to exclude its competitors from the market and preventing the launch of products running AMD processors. The legal process that started upon these allegations, described as “explicit restrictions”, has been re-examined many times over the years. In 2017, Europe’s highest judicial body decided to review the fine on the grounds that the economic impact of Intel’s activities on competitors was not fully assessed.
In 2022, Europe’s second highest court lifted the 1.06 billion euro fine, stating that the Commission had carried out an incomplete analysis. The court emphasized that it was not sufficiently examined whether the discounts offered by Intel had negative effects on competition or harmed market competition. The Commission appealed this decision; However, the Court of Justice of the European Union finally rejected this objection and approved the decision abolishing the penalty. However, since Intel had not appealed the “explicit restrictions” part of the previous decisions, the Commission imposed a new fine of 376 million euros on this basis last year. The company is waging a legal fight against this penalty and has also filed a lawsuit against the European Union for the refund of the interest payment calculated on the original penalty.
Intel has lost market share in the intervening years
Over the years, there have been major changes in the processor market. In 2009, Intel had a huge advantage in the CPU industry with a market share of 81 percent, while AMD’s share was only 12 percent. Today, Intel’s market share has fallen to 63 percent and it is experiencing difficulties in its production processes, especially against competitors such as TSMC. TSMC produces the vast majority of AMD and NVIDIA’s CPUs, GPUs and AI processors. Ironically, Intel has also directed 30 percent of its production to TSMC and other foundries in order to increase its own production capacity. However, despite production problems, it can easily be said that the company has a successful legal team.