The European Court of Justice has sent for reconsideration the decision of the European Commission which obliged the U.S. company Intel to pay a €1.16 billion antimonopoly fine. The decision was published on the court’s website.
In 2009 the European Commission fined Intel, ruling that the computer components manufacturer had violated the rules of fair competition in the European market. In particular, the regulator said that from 2002 to 2005 the corporation gave a discount to players on the ready-made computer market and made them promise that 95% of their products would be made up of Intel components. Thus, the European Commission found, the U.S. manufacturer was limiting the use of competitor processors – Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
In 2012 Intel tried to challenge the European Commission’s decision, but then the European authorities did not find the arguments of the corporation convincing. During the current appeal, the company insisted on reconsideration of the decision to pay the fine. Intel, in particular, argued that the regulator had not analyzed “all the circumstances of the case”, which is why it made an “unfair and erroneous” ruling. The European Court agreed with the arguments of the applicant and sent the case for review to a lower court.
The decision could affect other antitrust disputes between the European Union and large companies. For example, in June Google was fined $2.42 billion for violating antitrust laws (see “European Commission Fines Google €2.4 Billion”). If the court reviews the case in favor of Intel, it could become a unique precedent, since the European Commission has not lost major antitrust cases for decades.
Assimakis Komninos of the law firm White & Case takes a similar view. “This is certainly a defeat for the European Commission and indicates some weakening of the dominance of case law,” he said, adding that any corporations that are in dispute with the European Commission can see this as a “positive sign.”