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Report: EU readies sanctions against Intel

The European Commission has sent a draft decision ruling against Intel to EU member states, according to reports.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers

The European Commission is moving toward punitive action against Intel for violating antitrust law, according to reports.

The European Commission has sent to EU member states a draft decision that rules against the world's largest chipmaker, according to reports from Reuters and Bloomberg.

The Commission may deliver a formal decision within weeks, based on past practice, according to Reuters.

In the draft decision, the Commission states that Intel abused its market power in violation of EU antitrust law.

Intel's only real competition in the worldwide PC processor market is Advanced Micro Devices, which sued Intel in 2005 on antitrust grounds.

The 500-page draft was circulated to 27 "national competition authorities" over the past few weeks, according to Bloomberg.

Intel has been wrangling with the EU since 2001, when AMD filed a complaint.

Last July, the Commission made additional charges against Intel for abusing its dominant position in the chip market in Europe. The charges include offering inducements to European retailers for not buying processors from AMD.

Intel was also charged with paying "a leading Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)" to delay the launch of a product with an AMD CPU, and giving "substantial" rebates to the same OEM if it bought only CPUs from Intel.

Intel had no comment.