Yesterday, the General Court rejected Intel’s appeal against the European Commission’s decision of 22 September 2023 to impose a fine for so-called naked restrictions. These restrictions concerned payments made by Intel to computer manufacturers (HP, Acer and Lenovo) to delay, cancel or restrict the marketing of products equipped with CPUs of its competitor AMD.

This judgement is another chapter in a long-running story:
📌 𝟏𝟑 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟗 – Commission imposed a fine of approx. €1 billion for exclusionary abuses of dominance
📌 𝟏𝟐 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟒 – General Court dismissed Intel’s appeal
📌 𝟔 𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟕 – Court of Justice annulled that dismissal in a landmark ruling
📌 𝟐𝟔 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 – General Court annulled the Commission’s decision in its entirety but nevertheless confirmed the Commission’s finding on the naked restrictions. Only the Commission appealed this judgement.
📌 𝟐𝟐 𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 – Commission imposed a fine of approx. €376 million for naked restrictions
📌 𝟐𝟒 𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 – Court of Justice confirmed the 2022 judgement

Put simply, the General Court refused to revisit the legality of the concept of naked restrictions, which are virtually irrefutably assumed to have exclusionary effects. The General Court took the view that, despite the annulment of the original decision of the Commission, the finding that the naked restrictions infringed competition law had become final already in 2022, as the Commission only needed to issue a new decision on the fine.

The General Court did agree with Intel that the Commission failed to reassess the fine appropriately. The remaining infringement was only a fraction of the original case. The fine was therefore reduced to approx. €237 million, reflecting that the naked restrictions were sporadic and affected a relatively limited number of computers. This indicates that competition authorities should not act as sore losers when confronted with a partially annulled decision. They must fairly redetermine an appropriate fine.

The Intel saga may finally be over, although a further appeal before the Court of Justice remains possible.

#competitionlaw #ECJ #europeancommission #intel #abuseofdominance #nakedrestrictions