E.U. RAIDS INTEL IN GERMANY ………

[Anonymous]

EU raids Intel Germany over suspected antitrust violations
MUNICH,Intel
Germany said the European Commission has raided its premises in Munich,
declining to specify further.A spokeswoman for Intel Germany declined
to elaborate which reasons the EU commission gave as a basis for the
inspection. She said the raid is still ongoing and that Intel Germany
is fully cooperating with the Commission.The Commission said earlier it
raided the premises of an unnamed computer chip manufacturer in Germany
over suspected antitrust abuses.

A Commission spokesman said the
EU executive has also raided the offices of several unnamed computer
retailers, declining to provide further details.In a statement, the EU
executive added: ‘The Commission has reason to believe that the
companies concerned may have violated … rules on restrictive business
practices and/or abuse of a dominant market position.’

The Commission said there is no deadline for completion of the inquiry.
Commission
officials were accompanied by counterparts from relevant national
competition authorities.In July last year, six years after the inquiry
opened, the commission sent charges to Intel for alleged abuse of its
market dominance over rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc (nyse: AMD –
news – people ) (AMD) in the computer processing units (CPU) sector.The
EU executive said then that it believes Intel provided substantial
rebates to various original equipment manufacturers (OEM) on the
condition that they obtain all, or the great majority, of their CPU
requirements from Intel.The commission claimed Intel made payments to
induce an OEM to either delay or cancel the launch of a product line
incorporating an AMD-based CPU.In addition, the commission believes
Intel offered CPUs at below-average cost.

Intel has denied all the charges.
If
the charges are confirmed, the commission could impose a fine up to 10
pct of Intel’s global annual sales.AMD filed a complaint to the
commission in Oct 2000, alleging that Intel illegally exploits its
position as the world’s dominant chip maker. The commission’s
investigation opened the following year.

[Author]

February 13, 2008 at 1:20 PM