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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.
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