The European Court of Justice (ECJ), the highest court in Europe, made a ruling in favor of Intel on Thursday, ending the nearly 20-year legal battle between the American chipmaker and EU regulators.
In this case, the EU regulators initially brought antitrust charges against Intel, and a lower court ruled against Intel, imposing a fine of €1.06 billion (approximately $1.14 billion). However, Intel was dissatisfied with this ruling and appealed to the European Court of Justice.
After reviewing the case, the European Court of Justice made a ruling in favor of Intel. The court stated on Thursday that they rejected all the appeal reasons put forward by the European Commission. The court found that the EU did not have sufficient evidence to prove that Intel gave computer manufacturers illegal advantages, thus overturning the lower court's ruling and canceling the fine imposed on Intel.
Intel successfully fought back against the EU's antitrust charges.
Intel expressed "happiness" with the ruling and said that they can "finally put this part of the case behind them." The European Commission, headquartered in Brussels, stated that they would "carefully analyze this judgment."
Although Intel won this case, other legal issues are still ongoing. The European Commission imposed a new fine of €376.36 million on Intel last year, and this case is still ongoing. This case involves Intel paying manufacturers to stop launching products containing competitors' chips, which is described as "blatant restrictions" in EU antitrust law. In addition to defending against this smaller fine, Intel also plans to sue the European Commission, demanding they pay interest on the original fine.
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This ruling by the highest court is very similar to the ruling two years ago, which also found that the EU's charges against Intel lacked basis. At that time, the European Commission accused Intel of using its dominant position in the market to suppress its competitor AMD. That was the European Commission's first major defeat in an antitrust case in over 20 years. The Commission expressed dissatisfaction with that ruling and believed that there were many errors in the General Court of the EU's judgment.
In the antitrust investigation before the 2009 ruling, the European Commission accused Intel of giving rebates to computer companies between 2002 and 2005, on the condition that these companies had to purchase at least 95% of their chips from Intel. For the remaining 5% of chips, usually supplied by AMD, Intel set some restrictions that made it difficult for AMD to compete with Intel in the market.
After years of competition with rivals, Intel found that its technological advantages were declining. Intel encountered some difficulties in Europe, which affected their semiconductor plans there, including the delay in the construction of a planned factory in Germany in September this year, which was originally designated to receive €10 billion in national subsidies.
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