European court overturns Intel's €1.06bn antitrust fine

A senior European Union court has ruled in favour of Intel in the latest round of the chipmaker’s 12-year legal battle with EU antitrust regulators.

The US firm was fined €1.06bn in 2009 by the European Commission after its antitrust regulators found Intel had abused its dominant market position in the global market for x86 processors.

The Commission said it had done so in two ways, through so-called naked restrictions and by giving rebates to four strategic manufacturers: Dell, Hewlett-Packard, NEC and Lenovo. The alleged abused was said to have taken place between October 2002 and December 2007.

But on Wednesday, Luxembourg's General Court of the European Union ruled against the Commission’s analysis of the rebates, and annulled the fine.

The written ruling concluded: “The analysis carried out by the Commission is incomplete and, in any event, does not make it possible to establish to the requisite legal standard that the rebates at issue were capable of having, or where likely to have, anti-competitive effects, which is why the General Court annuls the decision.”

It added that the Court was “not in a position to identify the amount of the fine which relates solely to the naked restrictions. Accordingly it annuls in its entirety the article of the contested decision, which imposes on Intel a fine of €1.06bn in respect of the infringement found.”

As at 1415 GMT, neither Intel nor the Commission had commented. The Commission is able to appeal the decision, on points of law only, to the EU’s highest court, the Court of Justice.

The news is likely to be welcomed by fellow US tech giants, including Google parent Alphabet – which is itself fighting a €2.42bn EU antitrust fine – along with Apple, Amazon and Facebook, now Meta, all of whom are being probed by the regulator.

As at 1415 GMT had put on 1% in pre-market trading.