T-286/09 Intel v Commission

On June 12 2014 the EU General Court (GC) rendered its decision T-286/09 Intel v Commission in which it upheld the Decision by the EU Commission that found Intel to have abused its dominant position in the CPU x86 market by implementing a strategy aimed at foreclosing competitors.

Intel was said to have engaged in an anti-competitive strategy by adopting two types of conducts, namely, the provision of conditional rebates and "naked restriction", which included the granting of payment to third parties upon the condition that they delayed the release of some of their products to the market.

The GC upheld the Decision in its entirety and dismissed the annulment action. Thus, the fine of EUR 1.06 billion, the largest to date in EU CL history, was deemed to be proportional, despite the claims by Intel of its disproportionality.

With this Judgment the very strict view of the EU Judiciary over rebates, particularly if they are of a conditional nature, is confirmed following a trend initiated by the GC itself and confirmed by the ECJ.

A summarized version of the Judgment can be found at:

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=153576&pa...

The full version of the Judgment can be found at:

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=153543&pa...