$25 million is, of course, petty cash to Intel, but the significance of the Korean competition authorities in finding Intel guilty of offering unfair subsidies to Samsung and Trigem Computer, if they promised not to buy x86 processors from AMD, could be that other national regulators will follow suit.
The Japanese authorities have already told Intel to remove clauses from sales contracts which restrict Japanese computer manufacturers from using AMD's chips.
The EC's competition regulator is waiting to announce her decision on similar alleged business practices by Intel in
The
In public, Intel's chief lawyer, Bruce Sewell, has taken a pugnacious approach to the various anti-competition authorities. Sewell is reported as having felt the Korean regulators did not take full account of the evidence presented by Intel, and last July he made a similar charge of selective use of the evidence by the EC regulators.
However Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini, takes in insouciant attitude to the EC's investigation saying that the worst that could happen would be that Intel might have to 'write a cheque'.
It's not actually the worst thing that could happen. If found guilty, Intel could be subject to a class-action by European computer companies seeking civil damages.
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Comments (2)
Excellent write up, very interesting read!
Posted by Japan | July 17, 2008 11:14 AM
Posted on July 17, 2008 11:14
Thanks
Posted by David Manners | July 17, 2008 11:35 AM
Posted on July 17, 2008 11:35