Intel wants €593 million interest from Europe on scrapped fine
Intel has filed a claim calling for the European Commission to pay €593 million in interest on an anti-trust fine the chip company paid but that was overturned on appeal.
The US chip giant paid a €1.06 billion penalty in 2009 (about US$1.1 billion today but US$1.45 billion then) and reportedly received $1.2 billion from the Commission in April 2022 after it won an appeal in January 2022 (see European court quashes Intel’s €1 billion fine from 2009).
Intel has come up with a calculation of the interest that accrued prior to the refund. Intel has reportedly claimed in an application to the Luxembourg-based General Court that the Commission has refused to pay.
20 years
The case dates back over 20 years.
Intel had been accused of providing rebates to four major computer manufacturers – Dell, Lenovo, Hewlett Packard and NEC – on condition they bought all, or nearly all their processor chips from Intel. It also found that Intel paid three computer manufacturers, HP, Acer and Lenovo, to postpone or cancel the launch of products based on processors from rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. or to put restrictions on the distribution of these products. This happened between October 2002 and December 2007, according to the original complainant AMD.
However, Intel is also an active participant in chipmaking in Europe with a leading-edge fab in Leixlip, Ireland and plans for two further fabs to be constructed in Magdeburg, Germany (see Intel to get 40% subsidy for German wafer fabs).
Qualcomm is another company that has appealed to the General Court in Luxembourg and had an historical fine overturned. The Commission imposed the punishment in January 2018 (see Europe fines Qualcomm €242 million over Icera ploy) claiming Qualcomm made incentive payments over a five-year period between 2011 and 2016 so that only its 4G LTE chipsets would be used in Apple products.
The General Court has quashed the decision on the basis of “procedural irregularities” within the Commission’s investigation. The Commission can appeal the General Court’s ruling on matters of law by going to the European Court of Justice.
Related links and articles:
European court quashes Intel’s €1 billion fine from 2009
Intel to get 40% subsidy for German wafer fabs
Yole: Intel foundry is plan to offset processor decline
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