Written by Stephen C. Tupper

On May 13, 2009, the European Commission (the “Commission”) published a summary of a decision¹ confirming its view that Intel Corporation was guilty of serious anti-competitive conduct during a period from 2002-2007 in an important microprocessor market and, consequently, the Commission imposed a massive €1.06 billion fine on Intel. (A non-confidential version of the decision was published on September 21, 2009).

The Commission’s decision is the culmination of nine years of work and two separate, but related, investigations. It is a notable event for two reasons: (i) the eye-catching size of the fine, the largest ever imposed by the Commission on a single company for an antitrust violation; and (ii) because it is the result of a major Commission Article 82 investigation, the rarely used — at least when compared to its Article 81 anti-cartel counterpart — abuse of dominant position, or anti-monopoly, provision in the EC Treaty. It also constitutes a continuation of the Commission’s unofficial policy of reserving the use of Article 82 for “big fish” in “high profile” markets.
Continue Reading The European Commission’s Intel Decision