Frankfurt After the lifting of a billion-euro antitrust fine by the second highest European court, the US chip manufacturer Intel wants 593 million euros in interest from the EU. In January, the Court of the European Union annulled a fine of 1.06 billion euros imposed on the US chip manufacturer twelve years ago by the European antitrust authorities.
The EU Commission had accused the company of granting discounts to computer manufacturers Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo in order to hinder the rival Advanced Micro Devices. Because the Commission had not sufficiently examined the company’s objections, the EU court annulled the competition penalty at the expense of Intel at that time.
The dispute has a long history. Already in May 2009, the EU Commission, under the then EU Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes, imposed the historically high fine of a good billion euros at that time. The competition authorities had punished Intel for the alleged abuse of a dominant market position.
In addition, the chip giant made payments to the German electronics chain Media-Saturn on the condition that it only sells computers with Intel processors. With this, Intel wanted to push the only serious competitor from the market, according to the reasons of the EU Commission.
