EU rejects delay on Intel antitrust investigation
updated 11:45 am EST, Wed January 28, 2009
EU Rejects Intel Delay
The European Union's Court of First Instance late Tuesday rejected requests by Intel to stall its investigation into claims of abusing its lead in processors to stifle AMD and other competitors. Court president Marc Jaeger rebuffs claims that Intel needs more time to prepare a response and that the investigation was mishandled, saying that the chipmaker was "in no way prevented" from building its argument.
Intel has been seeking time to obtain documents from AMD since the investigation began in July and believes the information will help its case, but with the latest decision now has until Friday to offer its defense. AMD itself believes the request for a delay was simply a delaying tactic. Intel also hasn't produced an initial response that was expected on October 17th.
The company is particularly accused of trying to squeeze AMD out of the European market by pricing CPUs below levels AMD could match and of giving discounts to PC stores for excluding AMD-based systems from their catalogs.
Intel has always maintained that it has been competing according to existing laws but has already been fined in South Korea for similar tactics.
