Intel likely to face huge antitrust fine in Europe
The European Commission is reportedly set to levy what could be a record fine against Intel Corp. for violating antitrust rules.
Reuters and others reported Monday that the Santa Clara-based chip giant (Nasdaq: INTC) will be told of the fine Wednesday.
Intel has almost 6,000 employees at its Folsom campus.
The action would culminate a process that began in 2000 when Sunnyvale-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) complained to the European Union that Intel was using illegal means to keep it out of the chip market.
Intel is charged with offering European retailers rebates if they agreed not to buy AMD processors, as well as paying at least one manufacturer to delay rolling out a product it planned that would use AMD chips.
The company could be fined up to 10 percent of its annual revenue, which in 2008 was $38 billion. Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) was fined $1.8 billion in Europe last year, the largest antitrust fine levied by the EU.
