For Intel, a giant currently struggling through one of the most difficult restructurings in its history, any positive financial news is at a premium. On Wednesday, the General Court of the European Union provided the Californian company with a rare recent reason to be pleased, deciding to significantly reduce its antitrust fine. While the manufacturer’s culpability in blocking competition was not challenged, the size of the fine was mitigated, ending another chapter in a legal saga that has lasted nearly two decades.
The case, under reference T-1129/23, goes back to the period of the aggressive battle for dominance in the x86 processor market between Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). At the centre of the dispute were practices between 2002 and 2006, which the European Commission identified as so-called naked restrictions. The mechanism involved payments to key OEM partners – HP, Acer and Lenovo – in return for withholding or deliberately delaying the launch of computers equipped with competitors’ chips.
Originally, in 2009, Brussels imposed a then record fine of €1.06 billion on Intel. After years of court battles, this mammoth sum was overturned, but in 2023 the Commission came back with a new fine, set at €376 million. It was this decision that the US manufacturer appealed, arguing that the sanction was disproportionate to the actual harm of the act.
The judges in Luxembourg upheld part of the defence’s arguments. The reasoning of the judgment indicated that the amount of €376 million did not adequately reflect the gravity of the infringement. The Court noted the limited scope of the conduct, which involved a relatively small number of devices, and the fact that the anti-competitive conduct was not continuous – the evidence pointed to a 12-month gap between incidents. As a result, the fine was reduced by around a third, to just under €237 million.
For the channel market and the IT industry, the ruling is an important signal. It confirms that European regulators remain relentless in protecting competition rules, even if enforcement processes drag on for years. On the other hand, the court’s decision shows that the European Commission needs to calibrate penalties precisely, based on hard data on the scale of infringements and not just on the overall market position of an entity.
The decision is not yet final. Both Intel and the European Commission have the option to appeal to the EU Court of Justice, which could prolong this legal marathon. However, in the current macroeconomic situation and with Intel’s tight budget, the saving of nearly €140 million is a significant boost, even if it is only a partial victory in a case that casts a shadow over the company’s reputation from its days of absolute dominance.
