Intel Wins EU Court Battle As EUR 1.06 Bln Fine Annulled

(RTTNews) - Intel Corp. has won a long-running court battle in the European Union, where the Court of Justice, Europe's top court, upheld the annulment by the General Court of a 1.06 billion euros fine imposed by the Commission on the chipmaker. The European regulator had alleged an abuse of a dominant position on the part of Intel.

It was in May 2009 that the European Commission imposed the fine on Intel, after complaining that the microprocessor manufacturer had abused its dominant position on the market for x86 microprocessors by granting, inter alia, loyalty rebates to its customers and to a desktop computer distributor. These companies reportedly included computer makers Dell, Hewlett-Packard Co, NEC and Lenovo.

In 2014, the General Court dismissed in its entirety Intel's action against that Commission decision. On the appeal brought by Intel, the Court of Justice set aside that judgment and referred the case back to the General Court.

The General Court, hearing the case referred back to it, annulled the Commission's decision in part and annulled the fine of 1.06 billion euros in its entirety.

Following the Commission's appeal against the General Court's 2022 judgment, the Court of Justice now dismissed the appeal, thereby upholding the judgment of the General Court.

The Commission in its appeal claimed that the General Court's review of its assessments relating to the as-efficient-competitor test was vitiated by procedural irregularities, errors of law and distortion of the evidence.

In its judgment, the Court of Justice rejected all of the grounds of appeal raised by the Commission. With regard to the as-efficient-competitor test, the Court of Justice confirmed that it is for the General Court to examine any argument that is intended to call into question the Commission's assessments and that is capable of invalidating the conclusions reached by the Commission at the end of that test.

According to the Court of Justice, the Commission's arguments may relate both to the compatibility of its assessments with the principles governing the as-efficient-competitor test and to the evidential value of the matters of fact on which the Commission relied.

The Court of Justice also confirmed that it is not for the General Court to ascertain whether the operative part of the Commission's decision could be justified on the basis of reasoning that did not contain the errors found by it, where that reasoning is not set out in that decision in a coherent way.

Along with the now annulled fine, the European Commission in September 2023 had re-imposed a fine of around 376.36 million euros on Intel, alleging that the company engaged in a series of anticompetitive practices aimed at excluding competitors from the relevant market in breach of EU antitrust rules.

On the Nasdaq, Intel is now trading at $22.15, up 0.77 percent.