(Brussels) The justice of the European Union inflicted a snub on the European Commission by canceling on Wednesday a fine of 1.06 billion euros (1.5 billion CAD) imposed in 2009 against the American manufacturer of electronic chips Intel for abuse of dominant position.
Posted at 8:19 a.m.
The EU court held that “the analysis carried out by the (European) Commission was incomplete and, in any event, did not make it possible to establish to the requisite legal standard that the rebates at issue were capable or likely to have anti-competitive effects”.
The fine of 1.06 billion euros, a record amount at the time, was announced on May 13, 2009. The microprocessor manufacturer was accused of having abused its dominant position between 2002 and 2007, by putting implements a strategy designed to exclude its only serious competitor, AMD, from the market.
The abuse of Intel, which then held at least 70% of the market share of certain processors in the EU, consisted in particular of rebates granted to computer manufacturers to buy from it alone almost all of their chips.
The Luxembourg-based court explained in a statement that it was “partly” overturning the decision of the Commission, the guardian of competition in the EU. While certain illegal practices have been recognized, the ability of the disputed discounts to drive out competition has not, however, been demonstrated by Brussels.
But, considering itself “unable to identify the amount of the fine relating solely” to the confirmed abuses, the court decided to cancel it “in its entirety”.
This cancellation comes after almost 13 years of legal proceedings. It is still subject to appeal before the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Slowness of procedures
Neither Intel nor the Commission immediately announced the intended follow-up.
In a statement, the Commission said it “takes note of the court ruling, which overturned a large part of a 2009 Commission decision against Intel, including the entire the fine”. She will “study the judgment carefully and consider possible next steps.”
“We are reviewing the decision. We will provide further comments when we complete our initial review,” Intel responded, also via a statement.
This fine is the fourth largest financial penalty imposed by Brussels on a company for anti-competitive practices. It has only been exceeded in three files concerning the American technology giant Google.
The largest, in the amount of 4.34 billion euros, was inflicted in 2018 on the search engine specialist for having tried to impose its own applications on manufacturers of tablets and smartphones by taking advantage of the dominant position. of its Android operating system.
Google was fined a total of more than 8 billion euros between 2017 and 2019, but these sanctions are still the subject of legal proceedings after appeals to the EU courts.
The slow pace of Brussels investigations and court litigation makes EU executive fines ineffective in addressing competition concerns in fast-changing new technology markets. The incriminated companies being able to install quasi-monopolies before undergoing the least sanction.
This awareness prompted Brussels to present draft regulations (DSA/DMA) in December 2020 to finally bring the digital giants to heel. This new legislation, currently being examined by the European Parliament and the Member States, provides for obligations and prohibitions accompanied by dissuasive sanctions to act upstream.
The setback inflicted on the Commission on Wednesday by European justice is not a first. Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has already suffered several disappointments, notably against Apple in July 2020. The judges had canceled the reimbursement to Ireland of 13 billion euros in tax advantages considered undue by Brussels.