EU, Intel trade barbs in antitrust case

The European Union Commission released documents Monday that it said supports its a $1.45 billion antitrust fine against Intel Corp.

But the Santa Clara, Calif. chip giant (NASDAQ:INTC) quickly fired back, saying there is nothing new there.

The EU said that the documents show that Intel offered special deals and sometimes threats to keep customers from using chips supplied by Sunnyvale, Calif.-based rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE:AMD).

Among the documents are communications that appear to indicate that Intel rebates to Lenovo in 2007 were predicated on the company not using AMD chips, as were rebates to Dell from 2002 from 2005 and that rebates to Hewlett-Packard Co. from 2002 to 2005 required that 95 percent of the central processing unit needs for its business desktops come from Intel.

Intel, however, said in a statement Monday that the commission “relied heavily on speculation found in e-mails from lower level employees that did not participate in the negotiation of the relevant agreements. At the same time, they ignored or minimized hard evidence of what actually happened, including highly authoritative documents, written declarations and testimony given under oath by senior individuals who negotiated the transactions at issue.”

For its part, a statement from AMD said, “This is the first time that Intel has had to confront the facts of its illegal behavior in the public domain, and it may not be the last.”

One of Intel’s largest chip manufacturing plants is located in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, immediately northwest of Albuquerque.

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