Intel, an American technology company, has been fined $400 million or the equivalent of IDR 6.15 trillion by the European Union's antitrust agency for anti-competitive practices that blocked its competitors almost two decades ago.

In 2009, Intel was also fined 1.06 billion euros for other violations, but the fine was overturned by the General Court based in Luxembourg, the second-highest court in Europe. At that time, Intel was accused of blocking one of its competitors, Advanced Micro Devices. Nevertheless, the court agreed with the European Commission that Intel illegally excluded its competitors from the market, prompting the EU's antitrust watchdog to investigate the case again.

On Friday (22/9/2023), the EU watchdog re-imposed a fine on Intel for practices that occurred between November 2002 and December 2006. At that time, Intel paid HP, Acer, and Lenovo to stop or delay the products of their competitors.

The European Commission stated that the restrictions imposed by Intel constituted an abuse of its dominant market position under EU competition rules. Intel stated that they are considering their options and analyzing the decision and the amount of the fine to appeal to the European Court.

In addition, Intel is also waiting for the approval of the Commission for a subsidy of almost 10 billion euros from Germany to build a chip manufacturing facility in Germany. The Commission has appealed against another part of the General Court's decision last year, which relates to the conditional rebates offered by Intel in the European Union's highest court, the European Court of Justice.

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