Intel wins appeal of $1.2 billion EU antitrust fine

LUXEMBOURG (CN) — In a blow to European Union competition regulators, U.S. chipmaker Intel won an appeal against a $1.2 billion antitrust fine before the bloc’s second-highest court on Wednesday.

The Luxembourg-based European General Court found that the EU failed to prove behavior by the world’s largest computer chip manufacturer had anticompetitive effects, annulling the 1.06 billion euro ($1.2 billion) fine from 2009.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive body,fined Intel nearly 13 years ago for giving rebates to computer manufacturers Dell, Hewlett-Packard, NEC and Lenovo in an effort to shut out a rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The fine, based on the value of Intel’s European chip sales, was at the time the largest ever given for anti-competitive behavior in the EU.

The General Court upheld the fine in 2014 after Intel filed a complaint against the commission. But Intel appealed the ruling to the European Court of Justice and won in 2017. The EU’s highest court sent the case back to the General Court to be reconsidered, telling the lower court to further review Intel’s claims that the rebates weren’t anti-competitive.

After a second consideration, a five-judge panel agreed with Intel that the commission hadn’t demonstrated it was illegally blocking competitors.

“The commission’s analysis is incomplete and does not make it possible to establish … that the rebates at issue were capable of having, or likely to have, anticompetitive effects,” the court said in a statement.

In its 2014 decision, the court concluded that any rebate program by a company with such a large share of a market would be anticompetitive, but after reviewing the evidence the commission presented about Intel’s plan specifically, it found there wasn’t enough proof.

The latest ruling is seen as a blow to the EU’s ongoing attempts to rein in tech giants. During a press briefing on Wednesday, the EU’s competition czar, Margrethe Vestager, told reporters that her office “will need to study in detail what we can learn from the ECJ from this judgment.” Intel also said in a statement that it is reviewing the ruling. The commission could appeal the decision to the Court of Justice.

A 997 million euro ($1.1 billion) fine against San Diego-based Qualcomm for similar anticompetitive behavior is still pending before the court. The General Court heard hearings in April of last year over the fine, which the commission gave to the semiconductor giant for paying Apple to exclusively use its chipsets in iPhones and iPads.

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