European Commission 2009 abuse-of-dominance decision against Intel (€1.06bn fine), fine later annulled by the EU courts

The European Commission's decision of 13 May 2009 found that Intel abused a dominant position and imposed a €1.06 billion fine (IP/09/745). On 26 January 2022, in Case T-286/09 RENV, the General Court partly annulled that decision: it held that the Commission's analysis of the conditional rebates was incomplete and did not establish to the required legal standard that the rebates were capable of having anticompetitive effects, and it annulled the decision insofar as it found those rebates to be an abuse under Article 102 TFEU. Because it could not determine how much of the fine related solely to the separate 'naked restrictions', the General Court annulled 'in its entirety the article of the contested decision which imposes on Intel a fine of €1.06 billion'. On 24 October 2024, in Case C-240/22 P, the Court of Justice dismissed the Commission's appeal, upholding the General Court's judgment, so the annulment of the fine became final. This is a mixed outcome, not a clean finding against Intel: the rebates finding and the whole fine were annulled, while the General Court did not annul the separate finding on 'naked restrictions'. The matter was an administrative competition proceeding, not a criminal one.