Intel, FTC close to settling antitrust case
updated 10:50 pm EDT, Mon June 21, 2010
Intel hints ready to call truce in lawsuit
Intel and the US Federal Trade Commission tonight filed a joint motion to at least temporarily freeze the FTC's antitrust lawsuit against Intel. The request "opens a window" for the two sides to negotiate over a consent order that could settle the case. Neither faction is willing to discuss what the order would involve.
The lawsuit had accused Intel of some of the same alleged antitrust abuse that led to a $1.45 billion EU fine. Among the charges, Intel reportedly gave monetary incentives to PC builders like Dell and HP to avoid using AMD hardware and of threatening punishment should a company sell or advertise too many AMD-based systems. Unlike prior lawsuits around the world, though, the lawsuit also touches on a licensing fight with NVIDIA that has seen it bar the graphics chipset maker from offering full system chipsets for any Intel processor with an integrated memory controller, which right now includes every Core i3, i5 and i7 processor, among others.
Since facing its EU verdict, Intel has been more willing to settle cases and paid AMD $1.25 billion to get it out of ongoing legal action in exchange for changing certain practices. A similar agreement in the FTC's case could not only change how Intel offers chips to American PC manufacturers but could clear a path for NVIDIA to start making full chipsets for modern Intel processors, letting PC builders like Apple use faster components.
