EU confirms additional antitrust charges against Intel
Reported earlier this week, Europe's governing body expands its case against the chipmaker's sales and marketing practices.
Updated at 1:05 p.m. PDT to include Intel's response.
Europe's governing body said Thursday it is expanding the number of antitrust charges it is bringing against Intel.
The European Commission's official announcement confirms a report that appeared earlier this week in The Wall Street Journal.
The commission filed court papers Thursday bringing three additional charges against Intel for abusing its dominant position in the chip market in Europe, including offering inducements to European retailers for not buying processors from the company's competitors, chiefly Advanced Micro Devices.
In addition, Intel is 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 issued a statement Thursday afternoon. "We're naturally disappointed the Commission has decided to issue a new (Statement of Objections). The issuance of a second SO suggests that the Commission supports AMD's position that Intel should be prevented from competing fairly and offering price discounts which have resulted in lower prices for consumers." The company said it will evaluate the charges and plans to respond.
Intel has eight weeks to do so, at which time a hearing will be held.