The European Commission will decide by the end of the year whether to initiate anti-trust proceedings against Intel, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The EC anti-trust people have to test the evidence they have collected against Intel before deciding whether or not they’ll bring charges.
The evidence relates to alleged business practices at Intel, such as offering inducements to PC makers only to use Intel processors, or only to use a small proportion of AMD processors, or taking retaliatory steps against PC makers which use AMD processors.
If the EC’s competition directorate does decide to initiate proceedings against Intel, the company would have two months to try and change its mind before the action would be started.