Thursday, July 23rd 2009
Intel Appeals Against EU Antitrust Verdict
Earlier this year in May, the European Commission for anti-competitive practices found Intel guilty of various antitrust practices. The company was then slapped with a massive 1.06 billion Euro (US $1.45 billion) fine, the single largest antitrust fine it has ever meted out to a company. On Wednesday, Intel explored its legal option of appealing against the fine with Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, Europe's second highest judicial body. The company argues that the EC regulator failed to consider the evidence that supported Intel's contention during the trial.
In a telephone interview with ComputerWorld, Robert Manetta, an Intel spokesperson said "We believe the Commission misinterpreted some evidence and ignored other pieces of evidence." Meanwhile, apart from the fine Intel is expected to pay within three months of the verdict, the ruling also puts a stop to Intel's rebates to PC manufacturers and retailers on condition of near or total exclusivity, among several other deemed malpractices. Authorities in South Korea and Japan found similar irregularities in Intel's marketing methods, while the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General's office are investigating the company for abuse of its monopoly position.
Source:
ComputerWorld
In a telephone interview with ComputerWorld, Robert Manetta, an Intel spokesperson said "We believe the Commission misinterpreted some evidence and ignored other pieces of evidence." Meanwhile, apart from the fine Intel is expected to pay within three months of the verdict, the ruling also puts a stop to Intel's rebates to PC manufacturers and retailers on condition of near or total exclusivity, among several other deemed malpractices. Authorities in South Korea and Japan found similar irregularities in Intel's marketing methods, while the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General's office are investigating the company for abuse of its monopoly position.
307 Comments on Intel Appeals Against EU Antitrust Verdict
Hail the all mighty Intel the doers of no wrong!!!!
Again, what does my opinion of this verdict actually have anything to do with the name of the company. You could substitute any company names you see fit, in any industry you see fit, and my opinion would be no different.
And I feel that uniform laws should be agreed upon by all nations/regions, not different in every region. As such I, of course, am inclined to agree more with the US's way of doing things. Even more so considering that the US is the largest driver of the world economy, for better or for worse. That clear it up for you?
we wont ever agree on that, I feel this countries laws are as screwed up as the rest of the worlds on avg, mostly due to the fact that so many laws get approved due to lobbyists and bad/false info(see lies).
I could give examples,but there is no point, you wont agree with me that for example tossing some kid who has a scrape bag with weed crumbs in it in jail for 6 months and giving him a life long felony drug conviction on his records is BS, specly when a drunk drive who hits a copcar can get tossed in the can and be out the next day with a fine and maby probation, if hes done it a few times, AA and maby treatment.....(yes, this happens here all the time)
What this country/world needs is a format and reinstall in the govt/laws dept, remove the stupid useless dead weight laws that make no sense and fix the systems that allowed the laws to be made.
oh, and do you agree with laws like the DMCA? just wondering, because most of the world and even US citizens who know what it is dont agree with it.
Either way, I'm done here. We've both said our peace, and still don't agree. Pointless to take it further.
Just to clear some things up though.
Intel do need to obey European Law when they sell products in Europe.
People in Europe do know how businesses work.
The economy of Europe is very close to that of the USA but with far less foreign debt.
Intel can't afford to not sell in Europe.
Their market position is essential in this case, because they could use their weight with the OEMs to cap AMD's market share. You could look at these rebates from another perspective: Either you sell only our chips and get them for decent prices or you decide to sell AMD's chips as well (i.e. let them get a bigger share of your whole sales than we want) and get our rip-off prices. And since you depend on us for the most of your sales it would be very stupid to do that...
As I said in onther post: demand for your chips doesn't matter if the bigger player effectively caps your suplly via OEMs/retailers.
Intel has always been bigger and that's OK. But they shouldn't have abused their power with the OEMs/retailers to exclude AMD from the market, they should have left the decision to the consumers.
Ask Spider-man he'll tell you about power and responsibility :)
And as far as I'm concerned, the decision to sell only Intel cpus lies more on the hands of the OEMs, not Intel. And I also believe it should be perfectly within the rights of a company to not offer a product they don't want to offer.
Bottom line, nobody has said anything that convinces me something wrong has been done here.
And, considering this is all just continually going in circles, with everyone restating the same points over and over, this will be my last post on the topic until someone provides new facts.
"* Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer C from October 2002 to November 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing no less than 80% of its CPU needs for its desktop and notebook computers from Intel"
So you see AMD machines could be sold but only if the sales didn't contribute more than 20% (or even less in other cases) of the OEM's sales.
The final decision was obviously that of the OEM's, but considering the consequences of the "wrong" decision, it is a pretty straightforward thing in terms of business prospects to accept Intel's rebates. But that doesn't make it a fair practice, and that's why there are laws to prevent that kind of behavior.
Lots of people argue that as long as Intel didn't put the gun the their heads or threatened to stop supplying their chips altogether, it was OK to offer those rebates, cause that's just a rebate and nobody was (literally) forcing the OEM's to go along with it.
But not everything is always black&white in your face obvious. There are a lot of ways to do things more subtle. Just look at the tax evading practices.
And those rebates is just a subtle way to put a gun to your head and make you do it the Intel's way.
if i stole something on holiday I am faced with their laws not ours... end of. Its nothign to do with EU being greedy or anything.. its just they broke the law.... so what if it's not in the American laws.. its in the EU, you can't go to eu (if your from america) do something wrong and be like,, well its legal in my country.. your just trying to get money out of me...
its just stupid.
You can scroll down and see the EU and US laws, they are quite similar actually.
"Manufacturer C" should get strung up for agreeing to the contract, not Intel. "Manufacturer C" willingly agreed to Intel's terms. Had they not, this should have been in the courts back in 2002--the contract should have never been agreed to.
Assuming Intel is guilty, how does that warrant a 1+ billion euro fine? Did this "manufacturer C" even net that much revenue in the same time period?
Why is this coming up 3-4 years after the fact?
Why does the money go to reducing EU member fees rather than the parties hurt by anti-competitive behavior that they alledge?
Everything about it smells fishy. Again, Intel will lose the appeal because it is a circus court. There's no doubt in my mind on that.
There are practically only two competitors on the CPU market for PCs, Intel and AMD. So by asking the OEM to get at least 80% of his CPU needs from Intel, you're asking to not get more than 20% from AMD. Nobofy even mentioned the need for forewarning in case of large orders.
Are we arguing about the fine amount or Intel's guilt, cause we have to get that first before we can discuss the fine itself.
The case has been in courts for years already, you don't expect a verdict over night, do you?
Why does the confiscated mafia cash go to the government and not the victims of their crimes?
Whomever is pushing these charges need to show that AMD lost x amount of money because of this contract. That not only helps in determining the fines for Intel and "manufacturer C," it also dictates how much compenstation AMD deserves. AMD was the victim, after all.
So, even assuming Intel's guilt, everything else doesn't fall in place as it should.In many ways, the government was the victim of the mafia. The mafia took over the role of the government and beating back the mafia meant the government was taking back control. It cost the government (city and federal) a lot money to right the wrong.