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Intel Faces $1.3B Fine In Europe
Hugh Pickens writes "European antitrust regulators, who have been aggressively pursuing what they see as anticompetitive practices among technology companies, could impose their largest fine ever in a market-dominance case against Intel. The commission began investigating Intel in 2000 after Advanced Micro Devices, its arch-rival, filed a complaint. In two sets of charges, in 2007 and 2008, the commission accused Intel of abusing its dominant position in chips by giving large rebates to computer makers, by paying computer makers to delay or cancel product lines, and by offering chips for server computers at prices below actual cost. Some legal experts speculate that Intel's fine could reach about a billion euros, or $1.3B. 'I'd be surprised if the fine isn't as high or higher than in the Microsoft case,' said an antitrust and competition lawyer in London. In 2004 Microsoft paid a fine of €497M, or $663M at current exchange rates, after being accused of abusing its dominance; the EU imposed another $1.3B fine in Feb. 2008."
No there is no minimum price in the EU. There is however a rule saying that if you have a majority market share you are not allowed to lower your costs further than your production costs in order to try to kill competition.
The reason for this rule is that companies have in the past manipulated their prices in attempts to kill competition and thereby obtaining a monopoly. The airline SAS-Braathens was convicted of similar wrongdoings after they lowered their prices below their costs in order to kill competition and made up for it by charging multiple times typical airline fairs to destinations where they had a monopoly. The rules are very clear and established. Intel deliberately ignored them and are being punished accordingly. There's nothing strange here and the EU has been consistent about it. Intel and Microsoft got more attention because they are very large companies and the fines are based on your company's revenue. Other than that this is business as usual in the EU.
"it isn't clear to me what the problem is with that aspect"
Because once they drove AMD out of business they would have an effective monopoly and prices would have shot right back up and it's illegal to do this kind of below-cost-selling.
Don't worry, he's just trolling.
"The budget also receives other revenue, such as taxes paid by EU staff on their salaries, contributions from non-EU countries to certain EU programmes and fines on companies that breach competition or other laws. These miscellaneous resources add up to around EUR 1.3 billion, i.e. about 1 % of the budget."
Source:
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/budget_glance/where_from_en.htm
It's a rather fucked up moderation system lately. I'm always ashamed of my excellent Karma, because if these kind of posts get modded up, I don't want to be part of it.
The only way to get mod points lately is to be *VERY* quick with replies. Which means that people either know it already (which is fine) or, as in this case, make it up on the spot (which is fucked up). Sometimes I just cannot get mod points because the article is more than a few hours old and I had to wait for day light, and then do some research.
Especially when its about Java or security/cryptography it's annoying. I know a lot about those topics and most of the time I cannot even hope for my replies to be read. It's doubly annoying when there are +5 articles like the GP that are just PLAIN WRONG.
No, this is called "Dumping" and it is illegal in the states too.