After 13 years, the EU justice annuls a fine imposed by the Commission against Intel

The General Court of the European Union has announced (pdf) January 26 the cancellation ofa fine of 1.06 billion euros imposed by the Commission on Intel in 2009 for anti-competitive practice. Justice considers that part of the Commission’s accusations were not sufficiently substantiated.

The prehistory of the case dates back to the dawn of the 21st century

With this decision, the General Court of the EU offers itself a small journey through time. Seized in 2000 by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a former Intel subcontractor who became one of its competitors in the mid-1990s, the European Commission found Intel guilty of abuse of a dominant position between 2002 and 2007. L’AFP and The world recall that at the time, the American company held 70% of the market share of certain processors in Europe.

In detail, the Commission criticized the American company for undisguised access restrictions to its products and conditional discounts. It is this last point which is at the heart of the Tribunal’s decision. Intel has been accused of offering discounts to four OEMs, Dell, Lenovo, HP, NEC, against the sale exclusively, or almost, of in-house x86 processors.

For European judges, “ The analysis carried out by the Commission is incomplete and, in any event, does not make it possible to establish to the requisite legal standard that the rebates at issue were capable or likely to have anti-competitive effects, for which reason the General Court annuls the decision “.

The General Court does not throw the baby out with the bathwater

The Court considers that there are indeed grounds to convict Intel for abuse of a dominant position in certain aspects of the case, but it considers itself not competent to recalculate the amount of the fine in the light of these elements. It was decided to cancel the entire sum, 1.06 billion euros in fines.

Intel was, unsurprisingly, delighted with the news. The company said, “ We have always believed that our actions regarding rebates were legal and did not harm competition. The semiconductor industry has never been more competitive than it is today “.

The case is not yet over. The Commission has two months and ten days to appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union. It also has the possibility of recalculating the amount of the fine itself. At a press conference, Margrethe Vestager, vice-president of the commission in charge of competition, preferred to play the clock, ” We must study this judgment in detail, the balance between what we have gained and what we have lost “.

An admission of powerlessness for the European Commission?

This court decision is a bad omen for European antitrust. Beyond the appalling slowness of the procedure, the sanction against Intel was symbolic: for a little less than ten years it was the heaviest fine imposed by the Commission in a case for abuse of a dominant position.

She was overtaken in three cases, between 2017 and 2019, involving Google. The heaviest, in 2018, concerns Android and reaches 4.34 billion. They are currently the subject of legal proceedings. Will European justice, after a decade, also cancel them? What about the ongoing investigations against Amazon, Apple and Meta, formerly Facebook?

Each case involves different cases and investigations with varying outcomes. Nevertheless, the long time of European justice and this unfavorable decision are not a good symbol for the Commission.