Saturday, May 2nd 2009
Intel to be Slapped with Greatest Fine in EU History
It is predicted that silicon giant Intel may face the greatest fine for its alleged anti-competitive practices, in a case heard in the European Union. Intel is currently being investigated for irregularities including encouraging hardware vendors not to use AMD products, and offering discounts. Legal analysts estimate the fine to be well over 1,000,000,000 EUR, over double that of what is heading Microsoft's way. In a statement to the New York Times, says Howard Cartlidge, head of the EU competition group at law firm Olswang in London, "I would be surprised if the fine isn't as high or higher than in the Microsoft case. Technology markets are where the European Commission has perceived particular problems due to dominant companies."
The ongoing trial in EU runs parallel to similar anti-competition trials in Japan and Korea, where Intel is found guilty. It is a joint effort between EU and United States Federal Trade Commission investogators. Despite previous convictions, Intel maintains that it has done nothing wrong and is confident of being found innocent. Says Intel spokesperson Robert Manetta, "Overall, Intel's conduct is lawful, pro-competitive and beneficial to consumers." Naturally, AMD begs to differ. Sources in AMD reveal that Intel conducted anti-competitive practices throughout, to maintain an 80-20 competition. The number took very little change even when AMD was at the peak of technology advancement over Intel.
Source:
TechConnect Magazine
The ongoing trial in EU runs parallel to similar anti-competition trials in Japan and Korea, where Intel is found guilty. It is a joint effort between EU and United States Federal Trade Commission investogators. Despite previous convictions, Intel maintains that it has done nothing wrong and is confident of being found innocent. Says Intel spokesperson Robert Manetta, "Overall, Intel's conduct is lawful, pro-competitive and beneficial to consumers." Naturally, AMD begs to differ. Sources in AMD reveal that Intel conducted anti-competitive practices throughout, to maintain an 80-20 competition. The number took very little change even when AMD was at the peak of technology advancement over Intel.
142 Comments on Intel to be Slapped with Greatest Fine in EU History
Also, it is the judiciary's job to punish entities if found guilty of something. They really have nothing better to do with a guilty entity, it's their job. EU caught Intel pooch-scr****g with its markets and its companies, investigating, if found guilty, is punishing with the fine.
Makes me think they use it to fund the banks. (Just my own conspiracy theory)
Hell, most of the towns around here would go bankrupt were it not for the traffic fines they hand out every month. You can always tell when they're at the end of their fiscal month and they haven't made their quotas - you can't spit without hitting a cop car. And they'll fine you for any funky shit they can find or make up - farting without signaling, intoxicated parking, etc.
If the EU was making shit up just so they could sue companies, that would be unfair. But if they're really breaking the law and they happen to get a nice chunk of change - where's the harm?
Intentional acts like collusion usually require both compensatory damages and punitive damages. Comps are for actual damage caused by the defendant. But punitive is based on their ability to pay. The idea is you want to charge them enough so that it hurts. I'd bet that's why the number is so high. It has to be for Intel to even notice it.
Again, Intel just better be saving up that $1 billion Euros. They are more likely to win the lottery than win an anti-trust lawsuit.
So cut the crap with the EU blaming and move along!
We all know that if you won't play Intel's way, you'll pay. I know... it rhymes!
What's that? Can't buy Atoms without chipsets? :shadedshu
There!... one example of anti-competitive practices against NV's ION platform which doesn't involve AMD.
Also, Dell does most of their sales with businesses and government, which also may have played a part.
This is only about the money end. Intel has done incredibly evil marketing forever. Toms, Anand, quite a few mags, etc have historically had ridiculously positive reviews for intel. Even with the pentium 4! They even owned a synthetic benchmark (sysmark I think). Back in the athlon XP and 64 days it showed AMD chips to be like 20% slower in everything. No one knew this, but the address they gave for the company was.... intel's.
There's so much shit they've done it's asinine. It would take pages to list them all and they can be proven (literal tons of forum posts over this).
They fine the biggest companies for things that only the EU claim are illegal, while leaving the "small" companies unpunished for doing the exact same things. They impose insane fines and requirements on the biggest companies, and never enforce the same requirements on the "small" companies. Once they got to the point where they started telling Microsoft what it could and couln't name it's products, Microsoft basically laughed at them and told them to fuck off. Intel will most likely do the same with this judgement as well.
I'm starting to think the EU is simply fining the biggest companies it can to try and generate money for their failing economy...
Though I agree Intel needs to get punished in this instance, I'm just sick of hearing the EU has fined some big corp AGAIN!
Besides i want to know just who in Brussels decided that they are going to sue Intel. Wonder if it's an AMD fanboi who also just happens to hate microsoft...
When a Hollywood celebrity gets busted for drunk-driving, it's all over the news and the internet. But when you and I get busted for the same, we probably won't make it to the news, unless we did something nasty. :)
Let me put it like this: You're a car dealer. You want to have nissans and GM cars on your lot. You try to buy nissans, then GM call you up. They tell you if you buy more than 10% nissan, not only will they charge high prices for their cars, they may just cut your supply completely, ruining your business.
Intel has done this to every major OEM. Some of them couldn't even sell AMD in fear of losing all profit.
Intel should be fined billions, but the money should go to AMD.