News [Reuters] Intel hit with $400 mln EU antitrust fine in decades-old case

Hitman928 · Sep 22, 2023

Intel hit with $400 million EU antitrust fine in decades-old case

Intel was fined 376 million euros ($400 million) on Friday in an EU antitrust case stemming from the U.S. chipmaker's anti-competitive practice nearly two decades ago to block rivals.

www.reuters.com

This is the next turn in the case the EU brought against Intel for their monopolistic practices (mostly against AMD) almost 20 years ago. From my reading, the court dismissed the case previously saying that while Intel did abuse monopolistic power, the $1B fine wasn't justified based upon the presented damages. The court has now ruled that $400M is an acceptable fine for the damages of Intel's actions.

gdansk · Sep 22, 2023

A reminder to corporations to pay the fines when you can instead of stalling them in court for years until it boomerangs and the company is in much worse financial straits.

In2Photos · Sep 22, 2023

They'll just pass it on to the consumer.

gdansk · Sep 22, 2023

In2Photos said:
They'll just pass it on to the consumer.

And now with some competition around that's actually a competitive disadvantage (admittedly small).

darkswordsman17 · Sep 22, 2023

Wow, I'm actually surprised they ended up with a fine. The previous case made it sound like it was near impossible to calculate damages (which was ridiculous, but that might have just been for the damages in the EU; in the US Intel literally had a slush fund called "the Opteron fund" on their books for those payments and Dell had those payments on their books, but they obviously didn't report them to the SEC as what they were).

From the first quarter of fiscal 2003 to the first quarter of fiscal 2007, Intel’s ’rebate’ payments to Dell totaled $4.3 billion, including $3.4 billion in percentage-based rebates and $881 million in lump sum payments that was used to help meet Wall Street earnings estimates, according to the SEC.

SEC Details Dell's 'Drug' Dependency on Intel's Cash | CRN

Details of the relationship between the two companies were released Thursday in a 61-page document that alleges Dell repeatedly sought more and more cash from Intel to cover earnings shortfalls.

www.crn.com

If I remember right they settled in the US for about $1billion, so about a quarter of what they paid just Dell alone during that time.

In2Photos said:
They'll just pass it on to the ~~consumer~~ taxpayers.

FTFY, Intel's getting in on that sweet government handouts, so now taxpayers will be fronting Intel's anti-competitive shenanigans.

gdansk said:
And now with some competition around that's actually a competitive disadvantage (admittedly small).

Not really when they'll be getting 10-100x that from the government levying the fines. Actually I think Intel even already wrote off those fines years ago (think they might have been required to pay the previous fine but in a holding capacity while their appeal worked through, so they might be getting money now out of this from the amount they are no longer having to pay being returned). Wouldn't surprise me if they've spent close to as much on the legal costs and lobbying it took to get the original ruling overturned, so its not like these fines really did much to Intel's bottom line. They wrote off more in losses on fringe products and other anti-competitive behavior like contra-revenue. Heck I think the Sandy Bridge chipset issue probably cost them almost as much as this fine.

KompuKare · Sep 22, 2023

gdansk said:
A reminder to corporations to pay the fines when you can instead of stalling them in court for years until it boomerangs and the company is in much worse financial straits.

No, unfortunately it is a reminder to all corporations able to do similar, do it as even if you get ever get fined, and if you ever have to pay, it will be pittance compared what a monopoly position gains you.

While AMD did plenty of missteps at the time - and we will never know if they would not have done those anyhow - a $400 million fine in the EU, or even a total $2 billion fine worldwide, is nothing compared to having enjoyed a near 20 year monopoly in deskop, laptops, and servers.

Just think of the things Intel was able to with position: be in position to do share-buybacks for $billions; waste $billions trying to break into mobile (after crippling Atom for years before that); and similar.

Hitman928 · Friday at 11:04 AM

Not really an update but this popped up in my feed, so posting it here. This case is still going on. Intel is disputing the size of the fine. A final decision is expected by the end of the year.

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/intel-spars-with-eu-regulators-over-4214-million-antitrust-fine-2025-05-16/

Abwx · Friday at 12:21 PM

That s not much given their documented shenanigans, they went as far as bribing
local retailers through illegal contracts.

LightningZ71 · Friday at 3:47 PM

Ahh, the classic "kick the can further down the road so that I can pad my current income and dip in a few years so that my replacement can deal with the consequences" tactic...

moinmoin · Saturday at 2:06 PM

LightningZ71 said:
Ahh, the classic "kick the can further down the road so that I can pad my current income and dip in a few years so that my replacement can deal with the consequences" tactic...

Since Intel is doing worse the resulting fine while lower is actually hurting them more. Fine with me actually.

DrMrLordX · Saturday at 5:02 PM

LightningZ71 said:
Ahh, the classic "kick the can further down the road so that I can pad my current income and dip in a few years so that my replacement can deal with the consequences" tactic...

Considering that some of the offenses date back all the way to Otellini, yeah, that's some serious can kicking right there. He isn't just retired, he's dead!

ondma · Saturday at 5:08 PM

KompuKare said:
No, unfortunately it is a reminder to all corporations able to do similar, do it as even if you get ever get fined, and if you ever have to pay, it will be pittance compared what a monopoly position gains you.

While AMD did plenty of missteps at the time - and we will never know if they would not have done those anyhow - a $400 million fine in the EU, or even a total $2 billion fine worldwide, is nothing compared to having enjoyed a near 20 year monopoly in deskop, laptops, and servers.

Just think of the things Intel was able to with position: be in position to do share-buybacks for $billions; waste $billions trying to break into mobile (after crippling Atom for years before that); and similar.

Yea, well, Intel had the best products too. I suppose you can argue all you want that it was because of shady business practices, but the monopoly ended when AMD finally got rid of Bulldozer and came out with a competitive (or now superior) product.

LightningZ71 · Saturday at 6:43 PM

The argument is that without Intel interfering in the market, more products with AMD products would have been produced, which would have driven demand for AMD processors, which would have resulted in increased revenues for AMD, which would have resulted in greater R&D activity, which would have improved AMD's products. Consequentially, Intel would have had somewhat reduced revenue, as the market was inelastic on a large scale, either making their products less competitive OR reducing corporate profit taking ability. Bulldozer might have been a better product or might have been more quickly replaced, or AMD could have kept their foundry more up to date...

We will never know because the market was manipulated....

Or, at least, that's what the court cases were all about, more or less.

Abwx · Saturday at 6:55 PM

LightningZ71 said:
The argument is that without Intel interfering in the market, more products with AMD products would have been produced, which would have driven demand for AMD processors, which would have resulted in increased revenues for AMD, which would have resulted in greater R&D activity, which would have improved AMD's products. Consequentially, Intel would have had somewhat reduced revenue, as the market was inelastic on a large scale, either making their products less competitive OR reducing corporate profit taking ability. Bulldozer might have been a better product or might have been more quickly replaced, or AMD could have kept their foundry more up to date...

We will never know because the market was manipulated....

Or, at least, that's what the court cases were all about, more or less.

It date back to 2001 when Intel bribed even small retailers to not sale Athlon XP PCs wich was competing against the mediocre Pentium 4 Willamette, without those shenanigans AMD would had expanded greatly, and when the Athlon 64 was relased bribes increased even more, to the point that HP refused 200k free Opteron 64 for fear of Intel s reprisals, that s a testimony of Intel s baselessness.

Schmide · Saturday at 8:48 PM

ondma said:
Yea, well, Intel had the best products too. I suppose you can argue all you want that it was because of shady business practices, but the monopoly ended when AMD finally got rid of Bulldozer and came out with a competitive (or now superior) product.

Most of the manipulation happened around the turn of the century. If one remembers intel released their Coppermine 1.13ghz that was quietly recalled after HardOCP and tomshardware showed that it was not stable. AMD released a Thunderbird 1.1ghz later that year that didn't fail giving them credibility for most of that year. Yet no OEMs picked it up. Go figure.

Abwx · Saturday at 9:07 PM

Schmide said:
Most of the manipulation happened around the turn of the century. If one remembers intel released their Coppermine 1.13ghz that was quietly recalled after HardOCP and tomshardware showed that it was not stable. AMD released a Thunderbird 1.1ghz later that year that didn't fail giving them credibility for most of that year. Yet no OEMs picked it up. Go figure.

Actually Intel also threatened motherboads manufactuers to no more sell them chipsets, to the point that Abit publicly stated that they wont release MBs for AMD CPUs, only FIC and the now infamous MSI did release one, and given the success of the CPU Asus later released one on an anymous white box with no marked brand.

Consecutively to the Intel i820 chipset disaster that did cost them a ton of money
Abit ultimately took the bandwaggon when socket 423 was used for the Athlon,
although it didnt save them from bankruptcy once the faulty capacitors debacle was
added to their marketshare loss.

positivedoppler · Saturday at 9:27 PM

Is the money going to the EU or the smaller companies that Intel harmed?

Doug S · Saturday at 9:37 PM

positivedoppler said:
Is the money going to the EU or the smaller companies that Intel harmed?

How does the court determine which companies were harmed, and to what extent? What if one of the companies harmed was determined to be Apple, would they still deserve a share of the bounty? What if some of the companies harmed are no longer in business? Too bad, or do you try to track down former shareholders and give them all a check for €0.02 per share?

LightningZ71 · Saturday at 10:56 PM

Arguably, every company in the PC industry that wasn't directly pocketing intelbucks was harmed by the distorted market, and following from there, every human being alive was in some way affected by the increased costs of that distorted market, both by having to pay more directly for computers and from having the cost of almost every item they purchased be slightly higher from those costs being passed on to the consumer by every company that ever purchased a PC.

ondma · Sunday at 2:03 AM

LightningZ71 said:
Arguably, every company in the PC industry that wasn't directly pocketing intelbucks was harmed by the distorted market, and following from there, every human being alive was in some way affected by the increased costs of that distorted market, both by having to pay more directly for computers and from having the cost of almost every item they purchased be slightly higher from those costs being passed on to the consumer by every company that ever purchased a PC.

Aboriginals in Australia were harmed by Intel's business practices??? Seriously?? Extending the "damage" to everyone who bought a computer or related device could be argued, but come on, "every human being alive" is a bit of a stretch.

coercitiv · Sunday at 3:01 AM

ondma said:
Yea, well, Intel had the best products too. I suppose you can argue all you want that it was because of shady business practices, but the monopoly ended when AMD finally got rid of Bulldozer and came out with a competitive (or now superior) product.

Weak argument from multiple points of view:

having the best product does not mean you deserve the entire market for yourself, see Google and their advertising business if a recent example is needed.
based on the article in the OP, the period Intel is being fined for is 2002-2006 which is exactly the period when Intel did not have the best products.

LightningZ71 · Sunday at 7:19 AM

ondma said:
Aboriginals in Australia were harmed by Intel's business practices??? Seriously?? Extending the "damage" to everyone who bought a computer or related device could be argued, but come on, "every human being alive" is a bit of a stretch.

Think like a lawyer. Aboriginals often receive aid from the government and other programs. If the process of acquiring that aid is made more expensive for the various entities that provide it, then less aid makes it to them. Even if they never get any aid, the government is working to address environmental concerns that affect them. If those programs are delayed by funding shortfalls due to too expensive computers and computer based services, then that slows those efforts down and harms the aboriginals.

The world is nothing but a list of second and third order affects in the mind of an aggressive trial lawyer. A long time ago, I worked as a law clerk. I've seen MUCH farther fetched effects than what I wrote above presented in trial. I'll grant you, it often got a laugh out of the judge and got denied as ridiculous, but I've also seen some really lose chains of effect carry the day too.

positivedoppler · Sunday at 10:43 AM

I dont know about this. If the EU pockets the fine, seems like they can just fine any American company however much they need. You can argue AMD was by far the biggest victim of Intel's shaddy business practice but they wont see a dime. The EU government collects and spends it on I dont know what

Thibsie · Sunday at 1:23 PM

positivedoppler said:
I dont know about this. If the EU pockets the fine, seems like they can just fine any American company however much they need. You can argue AMD was by far the biggest victim of Intel's shaddy business practice but they wont see a dime. The EU government collects and spends it on I dont know what

'cos the US can't fine an EU compay, maybe ?

lamedude · 2025-05-19T23:50:36-0400

The greatest trick AMD's lawyers ever pulled was convincing Intel to allow them to use TSMC.
AMD's settlement with Intel was worth *checks AMD's marketcap* $186B so the EU can keep the change.

News [Reuters] Intel hit with $400 mln EU antitrust fine in decades-old case

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