The EU General Court overturns € 1.06 billion antitrust fine on Intel

The EU General Court annulled in part the decision of the European Commission (EC) imposing a fine of € 1.06 billion on Intel for abuse of market dominance and anti-competitive practices. The EC has found in 2009 that Intel had abused its position in the market for x86 processors and had engaged in anti-competitive conduct by offering discounts to Dell, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and NEC if they buy all or most of their chips from Intel. The General Court has now concluded that the EC analysis of the case was incomplete and ‘does not make it possible to establish to the requisite legal standard that the rebates at issue were capable of having, or likely to have (an) anticompetitive effect’ and cancelled the imposed fine.