Commission welcomes General Court judgment upholding its decision against Intel
13 Jun 2014 02:52 PM
The European Commission has
welcomed the judgment by the General Court (case T-286/09) which fully
upholds the Commission's 2009 Decision which found that Intel had abused
its dominant position and which imposed on Intel a fine of €1.06 billion
(see IP/09/745). The
judgment is significant because it confirms that the Commission was fully
justified in pursuing the anticompetitive conduct in question in a major
worldwide market. The Commission will continue to vigorously pursue abuses of
dominant market positions, which restrict competition in the Single Market to
the detriment of consumers.
On 13 May 2009, the Commission
adopted a decision prohibiting Intel's anticompetitive conduct under
Article 7 of the EU's Antitrust Regulation (Regulation 1/2003). The
decision concluded that Intel had, in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on
the Functioning of the European Union (ex Article 82 of the EC Treaty), engaged
in two types of abuse of its dominant position in the x86 CPU market –
i.e. essentially, the market for computer chips. These were:
(1) granting rebates to 4 PC and
server manufacturers (Dell, HP, NEC, Lenovo) conditional on them obtaining all
or almost all of their supplies from Intel, and payments to one downstream
computer retailer (Media Markt) conditional on it only selling PCs with Intel
CPUs ("conditional rebates"); and
(2) granting direct payments to
3 computer manufacturers (HP, Acer and Lenovo) to halt, delay or limit the
launch of specific products incorporating chips from Intel’s only rival,
AMD (so-called “naked restrictions”).
In its decision, the Commission
found that the conditions and payments relating to these abuses were not
generally written in any contracts and that Intel had tried to conceal them.
The Commission found that Intel's conduct had undermined competition and
innovation. The decision ordered Intel to put an end to this behaviour, to the
extent that it was ongoing, and imposed a fine of 1.06 billion Euros. Intel
appealed the decision to the General Court.
The General Court has today
fully confirmed the Commission's findings. In particular, it found
that:
(1) The Commission had correctly
demonstrated the existence of Intel's conditional rebates and naked
restrictions;
(2) The Commission had correctly
demonstrated that Intel had attempted to conceal the anti-competitive nature of
its practices;
(3) The Commission had correctly
demonstrated that the practices in question were an abuse of Intel's
dominant position; and
(4) The fine imposed by the
Commission was appropriate.
Judgment of the General Court
in case T-286/09