The Korea Fair Trade Commission, South Korea’s antitrust regulator has fined Intel US $25.4 million for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the local chip market.
Bruce Sewell, general counsel Intel, criticized the ruling and told that the company will appeal against this judgement.
The statement released by the commission reads:
Intel had offered rebates to two PC makers in South Korea in return for not buying processors from rival Advanced Micro Devices.
Sewell said:
The conduct they’re seeking to attack is the conduct at the heart of competition. It is offering lower prices in order to sell your products.
Regulators also ordered Intel to stop offering the rebates.
This is not the first time that Intel has been accused of anti-trust abuse as in 2007 European Commission declared that Intel is exploiting by using its its dominant market position.
The EC cited three examples of objectionable conduct after it investigated Intel’s practices and the European PC market at the request of AMD.
- Intel offers “substantial rebates” in order to get PC companies to use Intel’s chips, and not AMD’s, in its products.
- It expanded that charge to include payments allegedly made by Intel to delay or scuttle the launch of AMD-based PCs in Europe.
- Intel has sold server processors below cost in order to hamper AMD’s business.
The South Korean regulator took 2 years to complete the probe.
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