- Intel was found guilty of anticompetitive behavior between 2002 and 2006
- The original fine was cut from €1.06 billion to €376 million, now €237 million
- It's unclear whether Intel will pay, or whether it plans to appeal again
Intel lost its appeal against an EU antitrust ruling over anticompetitive behavior, but the original €376 million fine set out in 2023 has been reduced by around €140 million to soften the blow, per Reuters reporting.
The new fine of €237 million has been judged to be more proportionate to the scale and timeframe of the violations.
This case in particular relates to payments Intel was found guilty of making to HP, Acer, and Lenovo between 2002 and 2006 to delay or altogether stop the use of AMD components in their devices.
Intel's EU antitrust fine has been reduced
Despite the drop in penalty amount, we can't take it as confirmation that the case will have a line drawn under it. Intel was initially issued a much bigger €1.06 billion fine in 2009, which was thrown out of court in 2023, making this an extremely drawn-out legal battle.
"An amount of 237,105,540 euros is a more appropriate reflection of the gravity and duration of the infringement at issue," the Luxembourg-based court noted.
In 2023, when the 2009 billion-dollar fine was reduced to 'just' €376.36 million, Commissioner Didier Reynders said: "Our decision shows the Commission’s commitment to ensure that very serious antitrust breaches do not go unsanctioned."
Intel's payments to stifle AMD sales were classified as 'naked restrictions', which the EU rules as "an abuse of dominant market position."
After a troubling couple of years, dwindling sales, competition from Nvidia in the AI market, and a near-$9 billion investment from the US government in aid of supporting American manufacturing, Intel is now readying its next-generation Panther Lake (Intel Core Ultra series 3) laptop processors destined for higher-end AI PCs.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan emphasized Panther Lake's significant in "build[ing] a new Intel."
"We are pleased that the General Court acknowledged several of Intel’s key arguments in this latest stage of the proceedings, resulting in a substantial reduction of the fine. We will carefully review the judgment to determine whether there are grounds to appeal to the European Court of Justice," an Intel spokesperson told TechRadar Pro.
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