Ten,
not exactly your favorite reading, I guess...
Published: Tuesday July 12, 2005
Unit 3, on my mark, blow the door, toss the stun grenade and go for the files
By JOHN PACZKOWSKI
Intel CEO Paul Otellini must have choked on this cornflakes this morning after learning of a European Commission raid on Intel's offices. Early this morning, EC officials descended on Intel offices in England, Germany, Spain and Italy, searching for evidence that the chipmaker used unfair business practices to persuade clients to buy its microprocessor chips to the exclusion of rivals. "DG Competition officials, accompanied by officials from national competition authorities are conducting inspections of several premises of Intel Corp. in Europe as well as a number of IT firms manufacturing or selling computers," Jonathan Todd, a European Union spokesman, told Reuters. "The investigations are being carried out within the framework of an ongoing competition case." Among the firms that warranted a visit: Intel's close personal friend, Dell. The raid kicks off a new round of investigations into a complaint filed in 2000 by Intel rival AMD. In 2002, the commission declared that complaint "not founded," but never officially closed the investigation. Now, with AMD's recent allegations and a March ruling by Japan's Fair Trade Commission that found that Intel had violated antitrust laws, the commission felt Intel merited another look (see "Intel to play Luca Brasi role in "Godfather" remake" and "Intelsucks.com was already registered, so we figured an ad in the Merc was the next best thing"). It'll be interesting to see what they find. |
