Intel: clarity on competition? - Newsletter

Key diary dates

• Monday 21 October: European Parliament's environment committee to vote on position for climate COP29 taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, 11 to 22 November 2024. 

• Tuesday 22 & Wednesday 23 October: MEPs to debate and then vote on the 2025 EU budget, pushing back against the Council's proposal to cut €1.52 billion from key EU programs like Horizon Europe and Erasmus+.

• Thursday 24 October: European Court of Justice judgment in Intel due.

In spotlight

The Intel judicial saga culminating on Thursday this week dates back to 2009 when the European Commission imposed a fine of €1,06 billion on the US-based global chip giant.

The company was accused of abusing its dominant position by granting rebate schemes to computer businesses Dell, Hewlett-Packard Co, NEC and Lenovo provided they buy its computer chips (x86 CPU) exclusively.

The schemes had the effect of foreclosing market competition from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), according to the EU antitrust enforcer. At that time, the fine was the highest ever imposed by the Commission - a record well surpassed by the €4.34 billion fine slapped on Google in 2018 for breach of its dominant position.

An initial appeal by Intel was dismissed by the General Court, Europe's second-highest tribunal, in 2014, but a subsequent challenge of that decision saw the Court of Justice refer the case back to the General Court for re-examination in 2017.

In 2022 the General Court annulled the Commission’s decision imposing the €1,06 billion fine in a huge win for Intel, finding that the Commission's analysis in its decision was incomplete. The Commission's original analysis “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, anticompetitive effects," the judges said, pushing back against the Commission's ability to presume that fidelity rebates foreclose competitors. That decision shook the EU executive's antitrust officials, since it suggested any such decision would require minute and painstaking calculations.

This week, the Court will rule on the Commission’s appeal and clarify the standard that the European Commission should be adopting in finding rebate schemes to be an abuse of dominance. Competition lawyers and corporates will scrutinize the Court’s reasoning on the what the Commission's “effects-based” approach will now require, and how much in-depth economic analysis the executive will need in future to establish the abusive nature of rebate schemes.

Policy newsmakers

AI Overlords

The European Parliament’s AI monitoring group, tasked with overseeing implementation of the AI Act, will be led by lawmakers Michael McNamara (Ireland/Renew) and Brando Benifei (Italy/S&D), a spokesperson for the EU institution told Euronews.

McNamara will be the group’s co-chair on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) and Benifei on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO). 

Policy poll

Data brief