Intel has argued that a 376 million euro (£315.8m) EU fine stemming from a 16-year-old antitrust case was “irrational, unfair and disproportionate” saying the European Commission “continues to live in denial” about the limited nature of the infraction involved.

The fine, levied in 2023, dates back to 2009 when the Commission imposed a then-record 1.06bn euro fine on Intel for blocking competition in the x86 computer processor market from rival AMD.

Intel eventually convinced the EU’s General Court to scrap that fine in 2022.

Revised fine

The EU Court of Justice rejected a Commission appeal on the matter last year.

But General Court judges agreed with the Commission that Intel had imposed what are known as “naked restrictions” by paying HP, Acer and Lenovo to halt or delay non-Intel products from November 2002 to December 2006.

That led the Commission to levy the smaller 376m euro fine in 2023 for “previously established abuse of dominant position in the market for computer chips called x86 central processing units”.

Intel took the case back to the General Court to ask for the new fines to be thrown out.

The company argued in court on Friday that the violations in question were of limited scope and could not be tied to a broader strategy to shut out competition.

“These were narrow, tactical moves,” said Intel lawyer Daniel Beard, arguing they could not sustain a finding of an overall market strategy.

The Commission rejected Intel’s claims, telling the court it applied the finding guidelines and when in doubt opted in Intel’s favour.

Market dominance

The fine amounted to only 1 percent of Intel’s turnover on the last year of the infringement and about 0.5 percent of its turnover today, said Commission attorney Pedro Caro de Sousa.

Intel and the Commission both asked the General Court to resolve the matter by setting the size of the fine.

The original case was based on complaints by AMD in 2000, 2003 and 2006 in which the company said Intel directly interfered in its relations with PC makers.

The activity came from a time before smartphones, when Intel was the dominant provider of desktop PC chips and its biggest competitive threat was AMD – a far cry from its troubled position today.

In imposing the latest fine, the Commission noted that when the General Court partially annulled the earlier fine in 2022, the court did however confirm that Intel’s naked restrictions amounted to an abuse of dominant market position under EU competition rules.