Intel has asked the European Court of First Instance for an
order to annul or reduce the €1.1bn fine imposed by the EC for
anti-trust offences.
Intel alleges that the EC infringed the law by:
- Finding that Intel's discounts to customers "foreclosed
competition" without establishing that they actually did have so
and without analysing whether the rebates were implemented within
the EU and had effects within the EU.
- Failing to meet the required standard of proof in its analysis
of the evidence. "The Commission fails to prove that Intel's rebate
arrangements were conditional upon its customers purchasing all or
almost all of their x86 CPU requirements from Intel."
- Failing to prove that Intel engaged in a long-term strategy to
foreclose the competitors. "Such a finding is not supported by the
evidence," says the application.
Intel also says the EC infringed EU procedural rules which would
entitle Intel to an oral hearing over parts of the case. Intel
alleges that the EC failed to procure certain internal documents
from the competitor for the case file when requested to do so.
The company claims that the EC failed to make a proper note of
its meeting with a key witness from one of Intel's customers, "who
was highly likely to have given exculpatory evidence".
Intel says the €1.1bn fine is "disproportionate", in that the EC
failed to establish "any consumer harm or foreclosure of the
competitors", and claims the EC failed to apply fining guidelines
correctly and took "irrelevant or inappropriate considerations"
into account in assessing the fine.
And Intel says that the EC's analysis of the "as efficient
competitor" (AEC) test to determine whether Intel's rebates were
capable of restricting competition is based on information that it
could not know at the time it was granting discounts to its
customers.
A version of this story originally appeared on
Electronics Weekly.