End of a long dispute: The legal dispute between the EU Commission and Intel lasted more than a decade. Now the European Court of Justice is deciding – one question remains unanswered.
The technology group Intel has been wrongly fined billions of euros by the European Commission. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) confirmed a corresponding decision from the previous instance in Luxembourg. This came to the conclusion that the EU Commission’s competition watchdogs had not worked properly in the proceedings against Intel. The authority had accused the group of exploiting its dominant position on the market with discounts in order to drive out competitors such as HP and Lenovo. In 2009, a fine of 1.06 billion euros was imposed.
The ensuing legal dispute dragged on for years. The European Union court originally rejected Intel’s first objection to the penalty in 2014. But the technology company appealed and was successful. The ECJ referred the proceedings back to the court in 2017, which annulled the Commission’s decision in a new trial in early 2022. The judgment that has now been handed down concludes the matter. The proceedings did not conclusively answer the question of whether Intel exploited its market power.
Source: Stern
