back to article Intel still chip, chip, chippin' away at the European Commission's anti-trust fine

Intel's rearguard action to avoid a billion-Euro-plus fine continued this week in a Luxembourg court, with the company arguing that the 2009 European Commission penalty was unfair. The ancient spat – it began with an October 2000 complaint by AMD – concerns whether or not rebates Intel paid to OEMs to use its processors …

  1. James 51

    Inflation has eroded the impact of the original fine. Wonder if the extra money in lawyers fees was worth it though. Guess no corp is going to let any fine be imposed without a legal WW3 first.

  2. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    Daniel Beard ...

    ... stamped his feets and tearfully sobbed "But it's just not fair!" in true Enid Blyton fashion."Oh woe is me!"

    And then his demeanor became more hostile and his thin, lawyery lips hissed " ... and what the hell is a Euro-dollar anyway? I know the fine was a billion of them 'cause El Reg reported it ... We'll pay up when we can find a currency matching that description ... probably as soon as TTIP is ratified and the US controls everything."

  3. Ragequit

    Wintel...

    I had all but forgotten about this. Microsoft and Intel didn't just share a bed, they used the same techniques as well. The irony being that the PC industry is now on such a decline that I doubt even Intel could afford to use such tactics again and this amount, while not unsubstantial, has probably been funded for nearly a decade.

    It'd be nice to see AMD's Zen be a repeat of the AMD64, except with superior sales. Won't hold my breath though. What AMD really needs to shine is a hardware platform (chipsets) that not only competes with Intel's but is as well supported in as many OSes as possible. And I don't just mean in raw features. It needs to have a good track record and that takes time. Time AMD might not have. That's why I haven't exactly postponed any hardware purchases despite Zen's relatively close release.

    Time will tell. One thing I can hope for are chipsets that don't put arbitrary constraints on PCIe express lanes. Often it's a tactic employed to force you to buy the next tier, but even ignoring the cost I find it extremely annoying that I have to color inside Intel's predetermined use cases.

    1. Ammaross Danan

      Re: Wintel...

      I'm just waiting for a well-connected southbridge that has more than 4 PCIe lanes equivalent. Skylake doubled the data throughput for theirs, but that was barely enough to support a USB 3.1 alongside a couple active SATA3 ports.

  4. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

    And it's ground on for so long that Intel's been able to continue to enjoy the fruits of it's activities, probably earning far more in additional profits than the fine will cost it.

    Now if the fine were adjusted for inflation, and interest added ...

    1. P0l0nium

      FYI, they already paid the fine and accounted for it. They want their money back.

  5. Cynical Observer

    Adjust for Inflation

    Re the comments about the fine no longer having the sting that it would have had when first determined upon, future judgements such as this could/should be worded with a clause to safeguard against unduly long delays.

    Tack on a clause to the effect that the fine increases in line with RPI (Deliberately picking RPI as it tends to be higher than CPI)

    Pushing the original €1.06 billion through an inflation calculation returns €1.175 billion. That's €115 million for dragging their heels.

    Assuming of course that the judgement is upheld and not overturned in the appeal.

    ... and then more for time wasting if they lose?

  6. Lars Silver badge
    Happy

    One thing is for sure

    Those American companies would never ask a Brexit Britain for any help. They will turn only to the EU in the future too.

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