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To: combjelly who wrote (237728)	7/30/2007 7:42:04 PM
From: pgerassi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Dear CJ: The fines may go to the EU, but the firms and entities harmed can get all of their damages in addition to the fine. Losing to the Commission makes the case of private parties won except for arguing, how much? Ordinarily, the member states only award damages suffered, however a systemic pattern can result in more, ala RICO in the US. For example horizontal cartels pay twice damages. And all the down stream parties can sue for damages including the equivalent of a class action suit. That means HP can sue Intel, its VARs and its customers (the ones the Commission wants to protect). The latter can be larger than Intel's revenue. Think about it. "I had to buy a P4 for twice the money as the A64 would have cost for the same performance." So the user gets 50% cost of the PC as damages. $500 damages to a $1,000 PC where the CPU sold for $150. Multiply that by all the sales (a billion units in the five or six years covered). It can get very expensive, very fast. Granted that was an extreme case, but it shows that a firm can be set with total damages larger than the revenue of the period. Pete