Sunday, November 8, 2009

NY ATTORNEY-GENERAL FILES SUIT AGAINST INTEL

       The attorney - general of New York state filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel on Wednesday alleging the US computer chip giant engaged in illegal practices to dominate the market.
       "Rather than compete fairly, Intel used bribery and coercion to maintain a stranglehold on the market," attorney - General Andrew Cuomo said in a statement.
       "Intel's actions not only unfairly restricted potential competitors, but also hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices," Cuomo said.
       "These illegal tactics must stop and competition must be restored to this vital marketplace," he added.
       The lawsuit acused Intel of engaging in "a systematic worldwide campaign of illegal, exclusionary conduct to maintain its monopoly power and prices in the market for x86 microprocessors", the "brains" of personal computers.
       It accusedc the company of "exacting exclusive or near-exclusive agreements from large computer makers in exchange for payments totalling billions of dollars" and threat ening retaliation against firms that did not fall into line.
       REtaliatory threats allegedly included cutting off payments from Intel, funding competitors, and ending joint development ventures.
       To obtain exclusive agreements, Intel was accused of paying so-called "rebates" to computer makers of billions of dollars in some years.
       "These rebates were actually just payoffs with no legitimate business purpose that Intel invented to disguise their anti-competitive nature," the Cuomo statement said.
       The lawsuit accused Intel of paying US computer maker Dell nearly $2 billion (Bt66.9 billion) in "rebates" in 2006.
       Another US computer maker Hewlett Packard, was allegedly paid hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates in return for an agreement to cap HP's sales of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)-based products at five per cent of its business desktop personal computers.
       US computer giant IBM was allegedly paid $130 million not to launch an AMD-based computer server product, according to the lawsuit.
       EU antitrust regulators fined Intel a record 1.06 billion(Bt52.5 billion) in May, claiming the company abused its stranglehold on the semiconductor market to crush AMD.
       Intel spokesman Chuck Molloy rejected the latest allegations.
       "We disagree with the New York attorney-general," he said. "Neither consumers, who have consistently benefited from lower prices and innovation, nor justice are being served by a decision to file a case now."

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