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.

By Electronista Staff

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AMD, Intel, computers, European Commission, lawsuits