Intel President Paul Otellini has said the company is confident of winning its appeal against the record $1.45 billion fine which was imposed by EU anti-trust regulators in May this year.
Speaking to the BBC following his keynote address at the company's annual developer forum, Mr Otellini said, "I can't wait to get our side of the story out in the public. I continue to believe and assert they (the European Commission) have got it wrong. We have appealed and we will win on appeal."
AMD first complained about Intel's business practices in 2000, but it wasn't until high-profile raids were conducted on Intel offices in July 2007 that the company was charged with breaching competition rules. In May this year, the European Commission ruled that the American chip manufacturer had indeed used illegal tactics to prevent AMD from competing fairly, including illegal rebates and paying retailers to stock Intel based computers only.
The Commission published a 518-page document this week, detailing its case against Intel, including evidence from companies such as Dell, Lenovo and Hewlett Packard. Commission spokesman Jonathon Todd told reporters, "With the publication of this decision, you can see for yourselves precisely the facts on which the decision was based and how Intel broke the law."
However, Mr Otellini is highly critical of the Commission's evidence, "They (EU prosecutors) have consistently ignored information that would have painted an entirely different story about those memos. We are precluded from releasing our own documents, which I thought was a bit unfair [...] In the Intel case I think they have certainly overstepped." A ruling on the appeal could take as long as two years.
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