Intel (INTC.US) was reduced by 140 million euros by the European Court of Justice: the previous record fine was cut again

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Intel (INTC.US) successfully cut the remaining amount of an EU antitrust fine by nearly 140 million euros (about 163 million US dollars). The initial amount of this fine was a record.

A judge of the EU General Court of Justice in Luxembourg upheld the European Commission's 2023 decision that Intel is abusing its market power in the chip market. However, the judge said the fine should be further reduced from the 376.3.6 million euros previously imposed by the supervisory authority — the fine itself was previously drastically reduced by another court ruling.

In its April 30 judgment, the court stated that the reduced fine amount was approximately 237.1 million euros, “which more appropriately reflects the seriousness and duration of the relevant infringement”. The European Commission, the EU's antitrust enforcement agency, said it would “carefully study the content of the judgment and evaluate the possibility of next steps”.

In 2023, after an EU court rescinded an earlier €1.06 billion fine against the chipmaker, antitrust regulators imposed a lower fine on Intel.

At the time, the European Commission re-imposed this lower amount of fines because Intel “carried out a series of anti-competitive acts aimed at excluding competitors from relevant markets, in violation of EU antitrust rules” for “having previously determined that it abused its dominant market position in the computer chip market called x86 central processor.”