EU likely to fine Intel for anti-competitive behavior

[NJ5]

More details:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/EU-fines-Intel-145-billion-apf-15228311.html?sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode=

Manufacturers depend on Intel to supply most of the chips they need and faced higher costs if they lost most or all of a rebate by choosing AMD chips for even a small order.

Hewlett-Packard buys a fifth of Intel chips with Dell taking 18 percent, according to market research from Hoovers.

The discounts were so steep that only a rival that sold chips for less than they cost to make would have any chance of grabbing customers, the EU executive said.

It said AMD offered 1 million free chips to one manufacturer -- which could not accept because that would lose it a rebate on many millions of other chips. It only took 160,000 free chips in the end, regulators said.

Intel's payments to manufacturers ordered the company to delay the European launch of AMD's first business desktop by six months. They were also paid to only sell the AMD line to small and medium companies and to only offer them directly to customers instead of to retailers.

Other manufacturers were paid to postpone the launch of AMD-based notebooks by several months, from September 2003 to January 2004 and from September 2006 to the end of 2006 -- missing the key Christmas market.

The European Commission said Intel tried to conceal the conditions attached to these payments and details only emerged from e-mails that regulators seized in surprise raids on the companies.