Intel asks for more time to respond in AMD's anti-trust case

Brussels (Belgium) - On July 27 of this year, the Europe Commission (EC) issued a Statement of Objection (SO) against Intel in an ongoing antitrust case. Intel was given ten weeks to respond with verbal arguments before that body. Intel has now asked for more time to prepare their response.

In June 2005, AMD filed lawsuits and complaints against Intel in multiple jurisdictions on several continents. Some earlier investigations by governmental bodies were also already underway. Shortly thereafter, AMD’s CEO, Hector Ruiz, outlined the reasons why AMD filed the anti-trust lawsuit, specifically stating that Intel’s actions included : 1) Forcing major customers to accept exclusive deals, 2) Withholding rebates and marketing subsidies as a means of punishing customers who buy more than prescribed quantities of processors from AMD, 3) Threatening retaliation against customers doing business with AMD, 4) Establishing quotas keeping retailers from selling the computers they want, and 5) Forcing PC makers to boycott AMD product launches.

Since that time, several regulatory bodies have issued preliminary statements that Intel did, in fact, operate in manners which are prohibited by their antitrust laws. These include the EC, Korean government as well as ongoing investigations in other countries including Japan and the U.S. where requests by Intel to throw out evidence or actions by investigative bodies have been rejected.

In the EC case, the SO determined Intel was in violation of three out of four paragraphs of Article 82 of the EC Treaty. That Article is essentially the cornerstone of EU antitrust law. As it stands, each of the three paragraphs Intel is in violation of, according to the EC’s SO, must be answered in their own right as they are separate and distinct allegations of monpolistic practices which stand on their own.

Intel could be facing fines of up $3.2 billion dollars, according to Forbes. Intel’s Chuck Mulloy confirmed that on October 2nd, Intel did ask for more time to respond to the EC’s SO. He said, "We did so because we want to make our response as complete and thorough as possible."