Intel wrist slapper

The European Commission believes that chip-maker Intel has infringed  EC treaty rules, abusing a dominant position to exclude its main rival AMD from the x86 processor market.

Yesterday, the EC sent a so-called 'Statement of Objections' (SO) to Intel that outlined its view that Intel has engaged in three types of abuse of a dominant market position.

Firstly, it claimed that Intel provided substantial rebates to various Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) conditional on them obtaining all, or the great majority of, their microprocessors from Intel.

Second, in a number of instances, it says that Intel made payments to induce an OEM to either delay or cancel the launch of a product line incorporating an AMD-based microprocessor.

Third, it says, in bidding for strategic customers in the server segment of the market, Intel has offered CPUs below cost to win deals over its rival.

Each types of conduct is provisionally considered to constitute an abuse of a dominant position in its own right. However, the Commission also considers at this stage of its analysis that the behaviour is part of a single overall anti-competitive strategy.