Antitrust Lawyer Blog

The European Commission (“EC”) enlarged the scope of its antitrust review of Intel on September 12 to investigate whether the company pressured an electronics retailer to exclude chips made by Advanced Micro Devices (“AMD”). The relationship between Intel, the world's largest chip maker, and the retailer, the Media Market division of the German company Metro, was being investigated by the Bundeskartellamt, Germany's competition agency, after a complaint by AMD. However, the EC is taking over the case because it is already looking at whether Intel pressured computer makers to prevent AMD from gaining market share.