Sweet is war to those who have never experienced it - Latin proverb
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Intel and the FTC reach a settlement
CHIPMAKER Intel has agreed to settle its antitrust case with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The announcement was made by the FTC, which said details of the settlement will be disclosed at a news conference later today.
Chipzilla was sued by the commission in December for using its dominance of the x86 processor market for a decade to block customers from buying competitors' products.
The FTC claimed Intel had forced computer makers into exclusive deals and blocked rivals from making their chips work with Intel's.
Intel has been writing cheques like crazy to make the regulators and competitors' lawyers go away.
In November of last year it agreed to pay AMD $1.25 billion to settle a lawsuit, while earlier in May the European Union fined Intel $1.45 billion and ordered it to stop using illegal rebates to thwart competitors.
We expect that Intel's settlement with the FTC will involve a fine, a promise never to do it again and probably some guidelines about exactly what it can and cannot do. However we do not expect Intel to admit liability. µ
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He also added that the FTC wouldn't hesitate to pursue Intel again and Intel can be fined if it violates the consent agreement.
"The FTC has no civil penalty or punitive damages authority, unless Intel violates the agreement. It is $16, 000 per violation so it adds up," added Leibowitz durng the open forum at the end of the conference.
In fact, the FTC said it is pushing to have the authority to fine in cases like this in the future. That way, the FTC could hand out fines similar to those the European Union Competition Commission can impose.
fcc has no authority to fine on its own in this case, that's why intel is going this way -- they will likely agree to pay this and do that and change this and modify that, but there's very little to no monetary penalty the commission can do without suing.
'AMD even had offered to "sell" them a number of processors for 0 cost' then evidently Intel had it locked up, illegally.
"The difference here is that Intel has an 80% market share so apparently can't do what everyone else does." -- YES! I agree, let's break up *any* such effective monopolies. Never a good idea to let any entity become too large: about 25% maximum market share is a good goal, regardless of all else. Heck, I'd even like to see Rotomola back making processors. But the major agency should be the Justice Dept Anti-Trust division.
"Intel said in a statement Wednesday that the company does not admit to breaking the law as part of the settlement and that the agency's allegations are all false."
Intel won't be fined but at least they won't do it again, unless they get caught again....
Now let's see, I owned AMD stock which I sold in 2004 because the promise of big returns vanished because lack of Opteron adoption by companies like Dell drove no new profits for AMD, and Intel was likely to blame, Oh! I forgot! The allegations are false, so says Intel. I guess I don't really have a claim.
Let's see, Intel gave back money to Dell that helped their bottom line and made Dell more profitable so Dell could offer cheaper PCs to their customers. And cheaper PCs is what customers have been getting.
What Intel had been accused of is bidding on business deals and offering rebates in return for larger volume. In the documents obtained from Dell, it was discovered that AMD even had offered to "sell" them a number of processors for 0 cost. This is Deal Making 101 trying to get business.
The difference here is that Intel has an 80% market share so apparently can't do what everyone else does. If the FTC banned these kinds of standard practices, a lot more companies than Intel would be affected. Hence, a settlement by the FTC & Intel.