The EU Ombudsman has decided that the
EC Competition
Directorate was guilty of maladministration in not making an
official note of an interview which the directorate had with a Dell
executive in the
Intel anti-trust case.
The Ombudsman also found that the directorate was not guilty of
maladministration in encouraging AMD and Dell to exchange
information in the case.
These two issues were the subject of two complaints made by
Intel to the Ombudsman after the EC fined Intel €1.06bn in May for
alleged anti-trust infringements.
'Intel submitted the complaint on 10 July 2008', writes the
Ombudsman., 'in its first allegation, it argued that the Commission
failed to take minutes of a meeting with a senior Dell executive
held on 23 August 2006, even though the meeting directly concerned
the subject-matter of the Commission's anti-trust investigation of
Intel.'
The Ombudsman found that the meeting of 23 August 2006 did
concern the subject-matter of the Commission investigation.
He also found that the Commission did not make a proper note of
that meeting and that its investigation file did not include the
agenda of the meeting.
The Ombudsman concluded that this constituted
maladministration.
He did not, however, make any finding as to whether the
Commission had infringed Intel's rights of defence.
The Ombudsman did not make a finding of maladministration in
relation to Intel's second allegation, which was that the
Commission encouraged Dell to enter into an information exchange
agreement with micro-chip producer AMD.
In the complainant's view, this agreement gave AMD access to
information contained in the Commission's investigation file.
The Ombudsman did find, however, that the Commission failed to
make a proper note of a telephone call between the Commission and
Dell, in which the information exchange agreement was
discussed.
Such a note would have helped to clarify the relevant facts. The
Ombudsman recommended that, in the future, proper notes should be
made of any meetings or telephone calls with third parties
concerning important procedural issues.
See also:
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