It looks like the FTC wants nothing to do with putting Intel’s anti-trust practices back in line, and just like the Microsoft case, will leave the hard work to the European Commission.
The news broke this week in the New York Times, just as Microsoft agreed not to file yet another appeal of its long running anti-trust saga in Europe, with the FTC seeming to be of the opinion that its informal reviews of Intel will not result in a full formal investigation. The FTC is understood to have waded through 1,000s of pages of documents before chairwoman Deborah Majoras concluded not to move the case on.
Intel has effectively been found to have offered, both US and foreign owned, manufacturers of PCs, large discounts if they would not use AMD chips. Given its monopoly position in microprocessors for PCs, this is considered an act of anti-trust and cases are proceeding in Europe and Korea. AMD has also brought its own civil antitrust suit in the US which won’t go to trial for another year or so.
In Europe Intel is likely to receive an even bigger fine than Microsoft, which will have paid well over $1 billion in multiple fines to end its own suit.
There is every chance that this decision could be revisited by the next US administration, given that President Bush is so ‘big business’ friendly, and has appointed key personnel at the FTC which may reflect that broad policy. Majoras is known for a similar position on antitrust and previous was involved with the ‘soft touch’ that the US Justice Department had in the Microsoft case there. However it might be easier for the US to wait and see what remedies Europe proposes in the Intel case, so that it can position Europe as the bad guy once again.
The European case against Intel has been brewing since 2005 when European investigators ‘inspected’ Intel European offices and impounded documents that were used in making the case against Intel, in a series of orchestrated raids.
Judging by the Microsoft case, it will take the Commission two years or more to get through the legal steps before any punishment sticks to Intel, unless the chip maker changes is current tack and co-operates on a voluntary remedy.