New York state sues Intel for antitrust violations
updated 12:25 pm EST, Wed November 4, 2009
NY claims Intel threatened PC builders
New York state's Attorney General Andrew Cuomo today filed a lawsuit against Intel that accuses the company of antitrust abuse. The Delaware-based complaint maintains that Intel violated both state and federal laws by allegedly threatening companies with retaliation if they used AMD processors and in some cases paying out billions of dollars in financial incentives disguised as rebates. Intel engaged in "bribery and coercion" to keep its control of the market, Cuomo says.
The Attorney General backs his accusations by alluding to the EU's $1.45 billion fine, as well as previous cases in Korea and elsewhere, that have all accused Intel of similar abuse. Internal e-mail between Intel executives as well as correspondence with Dell, HP and IBM have also been cited as evidence of antitrust abuse.
AMD has also sued Intel in a separate case.
Intel plans to fight the lawsuit and says end users have only been helped by its business practices, which have supposedly lowered prices and "increased innovation."
Although Intel has regularly had a performance lead in the market, partners like Dell and HP for long periods had no AMD-based systems at all and in recent years have usually downplayed AMD by relegating their processors to budget PCs. Some, such as Lenovo, rarely if ever use AMD components.
comment title
11/04, 02:19pm reply
oops.
gooser
Senior User
Joined: Jun 2006
Huh?
11/04, 03:45pm reply
So, NY is suing Intel, but they file the lawsuit in Delaware? Hey, why not west texas?
And their proof is that the EU says they're guilty?
BTW, the only reason Cuomo is around making all these grand lawsuits has nothing to do with defending the law or his constituents. It's all about his run for Governor in the next election. "Cuomo. Hard on big companies!" (At least until he needs their money for the election, then he'll be cozying up to them quicker than you can say "Kick-back")
testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
AllRise Community Court
11/05, 06:41am reply
The State of New York VS. Intel case is now online in AllRise community court. Join the debate and cast your vote - http://bit.ly/AllRise270
allrise
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2009
"increased innovation"
11/06, 11:46pm reply
That's pretty much the only thing we haven't seen from Intel in the past 10 years. They've been re-hashing the same stuff and putting new badges on them. At least NO innovation in the engineering department.
However, in marketing and sales, there have been tremendous amount of innovation, like bribery, coercion, blackmail, kickback, threats, etc. All the same innovation which netted Microsoft their monopoly.
So whenever companies like Microsoft, Intel and Dell talk about innovation, remember the context is not products or technology, it's innovation in marketing and sales, and business tactics (if you can call them that).
shawnde
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2008