The European Commission has said that chip manufacturer Intel asked for more time to respond to its accusations of monopolistic policies, formulated in July.
Back then, the EC, which regulates fair trade policies inside the EU, slammed the Santa Clara, CA-based behemoth with accusations of abuse of dominant position in detriment of its smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices.
Following a previous investigation, the EU had found that Intel slashed prices below manufacturing-costs and offered huge rebates to corporate clients just to determine them not ti buy AMD’s products.
"These three types of conduct are aimed at excluding AMD, Intel's main rival, from the market," the European Commission’s July filling said.
The EU offered Intel more than two months to prepare an answer, but the term expired yesterday with no official reaction from the Santa Clara giant. Apparently, Intel asked for more time to review EC’s accusations and prepare its defense.
Reuters quotes an unnamed official from the European Comission, who said that: "We have received a request for an extension from Intel and it is still under consideration."
EU’s policy concerning concurrence is very strict and the EC is known for the colossal fines given to those who do not respect it. For example, the European Commission fined Siemens, Mitsubishi Electric, Toshiba and other European and Japanese companies with a sum that reaches a total of 750,7 million euros, more than $977 million, in a price-fixing scandal that constituted in a violation of the EC Treaty’s ban on restrictive business practices (Article 81).
Between 1988 and 2004, companies like ABB, Alstom, Areva, Fuji, Hitachi Japan AE Power Systems, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Schneider, Siemens, Toshiba and VA Tech rigged bids for procurement contracts, fixed prices, allocated projects to each other, shared markets and exchanged commercially important and confidential information. ABB received full immunity from fines under the Commission’s leniency program, as it was the first company to come forward with information about the cartel.
Intel could get a penalty reaching $3.2 billion if found guilty of violating EU’s anti-trust law.
