The Balls on Intel...

[ElementDave]

The reason this got thrown out is because they didn’t have any documents that said this. They had industry insiders saying that this was the way it is but no paper trail.
All the other lawsuits Intel faced were because they lost this one in the EU.

So they have some ex Dell employees say they can’t sell AMD because Intel said if they did they would loose their refunds and kickbacks. Now they do see Intel making refunds and kickbacks. But Intel accounting showed it was because they had exceeded a certain threshold for orders so they get kickbacks. So Intels paper trail shows them not doing anything illegal, but the EU took some people at their word, but those people had no proof but the EU took it as fact.

What is the source of this information? Because the existence of the exclusivity (or "loyalty") rebates doesn't appear to have been a point of contention. The General Court (GC) annulled the fine based on the inadequacy of the European Commission’s (EC) effects-based analysis in establishing that the rebate schemes were in fact anti-competitive. Intel's rebates were not treated as per se unlawful. That point is important. The EC had to prove that a given rebate was anti-competitive, which required them to perform an "as-efficient competitor" (ACE) test, among other things. And of course examine "all the circumstances" of case (apparently a novel idea).

From what I understand of the 2017 judgement by the EU Court of Justice (on the appeal), Intel had to have submitted evidence during the investigation demonstrating that its rebates were incapable of foreclosing an as-efficient competitor. Otherwise, the EC would've been relieved of the need to perform a detailed effects-based analysis. It's possible that I'm mistaken on this last point, as the wording was convoluted even by legal standards.

I didn't read the GC's complete judgement, which is over one-hundred pages of legal jargon However, none of the case summaries or analyses I've seen mention employees from Dell or anything resembling your comments above, so those points — if true — at least don't seem to have been a central part of the case. I'm sure that Intel's lawyers weren't shy about pointing out shortcomings in the evidence, so I'm not disputing the factual accuracy of your comments above, just questioning their origin.

But let’s be honest here, Intel was sure as shit playing dirty. But the EU in their desire to call Intel out fudged some things that should not be fudged in a court of law and Intel finally had a chance to call them out on it.

You can’t go to a real courtroom with loads of signed paperwork disproving your argument then throw it out because a few former employees say it’s a smokescreen but then say the proof that it’s bullshit doesn’t exist because their too good at covering their tracks.
So Intel lost then they used that loss as the excuse they needed to raid the Intel offices for proof to backup their claims while others jumped onboard to also sue. Then after 10 years find no legal evidence to back up the initial guilty verdict.

Yeah it’s probably the old Intel guard being good enough to not leave a paper trail, but the EU’s case was poorly built and they’ve spent the last 12 years trying to fill in the gaps they left and failed. So now we get to sit back and watch the Empire Strike Back.

The initial complaint to the EC was filed by AMD in October 2000. The fine was for activity between 2002 and 2007, and it's still not completely resolved. How's that for efficiency? The EU is the real star of show here. People might as well make shit up, because no one would know the difference by the time show is over. That is, if they haven't already died of old age.

How is this ballsy? They're suing back for what they are entitled to after having been wronged.

Yes, they seem to be asking for what they're legally owed. Contrary to what some seem to think, the payment of interest wasn't Intel's invention. E.g.,

Europe's top court paved the way for such damage demands last year in a landmark ruling which ordered the EU executive to pay default interest on reimbursed fines in annulled antitrust cases.

Judges said late payment of interest will itself incur interest as well.

("Code" survives replies)
—https://www.reuters.com/technology/...erest-eu-after-antitrust-fine-win-2022-06-20/