Chip manufacturer Intel is said to have used nasty tactics to annoy AMD – now they suddenly want 600 million euros from the EU

The manufacturer Intel is currently demanding 600 million euros from the EU. Behind this is a billion-dollar fine that Intel had to pay at the time. But now you suddenly want your money back.

Intel and AMD are the largest manufacturers of processors that you can build into your gaming PC. At times, AMD was well ahead of Intel with the sales figures on Amazon. Intel is now demanding 600 million euros from the EU – behind this is a dispute over a court case between the EU and the US American chip manufacturer.

Intel is said to have offered discounts that distorted competition

What exactly is Intel supposed to have done? These nasty practices go back a few years. Intel had allegedly offered major PC manufacturers such as HP or Dell a certain deal for years: If you only use our processors in your PCs, you will get big discounts. Intel is said to have deliberately obscured these practices so that it does not become obvious.

In extensive proceedings, the EU had sentenced the chip manufacturer Intel to a fine of 1.06 billion euros because such agreements distort competition and leave the competition no chance.

Intel had therefore been arguing with the European Court of Justice since 2009 and defended itself against the allegations. Because the measures were all lawful and should not have impaired competition. In 2017, the highest court in the European Union ordered the fine to be reviewed again, and in January 2022 the fine was lifted.

Fine has been lifted, now Intel wants interest on the fine

Why does Intel want 600 million euros now? Intel paid the fine to the EU at the time and got it back from the EU after the last decision in January 2022.

But Intel still wants interest on the money that the EU has repaid. The EU wanted to pay Intel 38 million euros here, but the company believes that 593 million euros should be received. This is based on the interest rate of the European Central Bank. But the EU doesn’t see that as paying the chip manufacturer an additional million sum.

In addition, an appeal can still be made against the decision to pay Intel back the billion-euro fine. In the worst case, the process and the negotiations could therefore last a few more years.

After all, we are arguing about a large sum of money here. By comparison, in the first quarter of 2022, Intel Corporation had revenue of approximately $18.35 billion and net income of approximately $8.1 billion.

Cooperation and agreements always exist in the hardware area

Even today you will always find shops or suppliers that position certain manufacturers or products more strongly. Deals or long-term partnerships are often behind this. But a lot has happened on the market since 2009 and AMD is much more broadly positioned today than it was 10 years ago and no seller will be able to afford to remove a product line from Intel or AMD from its range without further ado.

For years, Razer had installed Intel processors in its “Razer Blade” notebooks and now installed AMD for the first time. You can read about whether the Razer Blade 14 is worthwhile for you on MeinMMO.

But then one manufacturer took it to the extreme: Because Nvidia had introduced a partner program to specifically push AMD’s Radeon cards out of the market. After much criticism, the program was scrapped again:

AMD says: GPU manufacturers feel pressured by Nvidia to avoid Radeon