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Simply disgusting, and difficult to understand. How is a market leader bribing OEMs not to use a competitor's product not the definition of anticompetitive beha

Simply disgusting, and difficult to understand. How is a market leader bribing OEMs not to use a competitor's product not the definition of anticompetitive behaviour and abuse of a dominant position?

belval 5y ago
I think it's because the case hinged on the outcome, not on the practice itself. The suit alleged that Intel had "killed" AMD with this practice and brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. The issue is, Intel is getting their asses handed to them right now by AMD so the argument seems pretty hollow in 2022. I am not saying this is good or bad, but that's the intuition behind the reversal I think. EDIT: Please don't shoot the messenger, I am just offering a conjecture, I am not even European or American.
- kergonath 5y ago
  > I think it's because the case hinged on the outcome, not on the practice itself. Yeah it sounds like it. My understanding from the summaries is that the commission failed to quantify the damage with enough accuracy and certainty. It sucks.
- avanderveen 5y ago
  To me it feels like the original fine may have influenced by that. It would have discouraged Intel from offering these rebates to OEMs, giving AMD a chance to slowly get back into laptops. At the time Intel's mobile CPUs were far superior, but the same could not be said for their integrated GPUs, but IIRC the rebates required that OEMs go full Intel (CPU, GPU, chipset, and WiFi).
  - tarlinian 5y ago
    This doesn't particularly make sense. You can't even use non Intel chipsets with Intel CPUs and integrated GPUs are inherently tied to the CPU. (In the case of the discrete GPU segment, Intel didn't even have an offering.) The only place where alternatives are even technically possible are in WiFi where there is no impact on AMD.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      > You can't even use non Intel chipsets with Intel CPUs There's no theoretical reason for this. Nobody makes them because they won't be able to sell them, apparently, but they could make them.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      > You can't even use non Intel chipsets with Intel CPUs and integrated GPUs are inherently tied to the CPU. You used to be able to, but Intel cut off the rights to use their chipsets' interconnect. Before that point 'integrated on the chipset' was a valid way to do integrated graphics.
    - avanderveen 5y ago
      The last AMD chipset that supported Intel CPUs[1] was around the time of this fine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_690_chipset_series https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_690_chipset_series
- soperj 5y ago
  It's kind of hilarious, they had to stop the practice, and immediately somehow AMD is resurrected (because they can actually compete now), and so the fine no longer applies. If anything it proves that the practice was harmful.
  - kansface 5y ago
    AMD was shipping inferior chips back then, now its Intel that is selling shit. Intel also seems to have been hit much harder by the new class of hardware vulns wiping out proportionally more of their historic advantage. I'd guess that 85% of the turn around has been because of differences in their offerings.
    - dralley 5y ago
      >AMD was shipping inferior chips back then But this is false. The reason Intel had to pay laptop OEMs to not use AMD's chips in the first place, was because in the time window in question (2003-2006, before the core2* family), AMD's chips were superior.
- p_j_w 5y ago
  "They didn't entirely succeed in their aims" seems like really terrible reasoning to me, and also has really bad long term consequences. If I'm a massive market leader like Intel then, I now have all the incentives in the world to use disgusting underhanded tactics to bury my competition. Worst case scenario, they get severely weakened like AMD was for years and I face no legal consequences. Best case scenario, I kill my only competitor and face a paltry $1B fine. If they are in fact using the reasoning you think they are, then they are even bigger idiots than I had previously thought.
me_me_me 5y ago
Because it doesnt matter what actually happened, but what lawyers can prove. The more you learn about the actual workings of justice systems, the more you see how unjust it. Especially wealthy vs poor people.
- Beltalowda 5y ago
  How do you know what happened if it can't be proven?
  - Zenst 5y ago
    Most legal system have a guilty or innocent verdict. However, the Scottish legal system also has a 3rd verdict of "not proven". Which I personally feel is better as with most binary decision options, if they are not guilty then they are proven innocent, even if there is that grey area of doubt that would yield a "not proven" verdict, as appears to be the case here. Hopefully, somebody with more legal knowledge will step in and enlighten a bit more.
    - Beltalowda 5y ago
      As I understand it, "not proven" is effectively just the same as "innocent". See e.g.: http://dukeundergraduatelawmagazine.org/2018/12/06/scotlands-three-verdict-system-a-look-into-not-proven/ http://dukeundergraduatelawmagazine.org/2018/12/06/scotlands... I have the impression it's mostly there to protect against wrongful convictions, which seems very different from the "it doesnt matter what actually happened, but what lawyers can prove" what the comment I replied to said. The EU ruling here isn't a criminal trail with a jury system anyway, so quite different in any case.
  - me_me_me 5y ago
    Illegal search for example, you will know what happened but evidence is inadmissible. So even though you know what happened you can't technically prove it as your proof cannot be taken into account.
vmception 5y ago
The public sector executive branch needs to learn how to make arguments in their judiciary just like private persons do
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
Because it's not a bribe. It would be anti competitive if they paid their competitors to not compete.
blibble 5y ago
because the EU commission are incompetent
- kergonath 5y ago
  They are usually competent when it comes to suing companies but yes, I agree and there is a worrying trend.
  - blibble 5y ago
    the commission lost against Apple recently too
granzymes 5y ago
Because the EU commission didn't prove its case. There is a presumption of innocence in this field, and the commission has to produce evidence that an as-efficient-competitor would not be able to charge sustainable prices in the face of the rebate scheme. The court held that the commission made errors in its analysis and so did not meet the burden of proof. From the court's summary: >The commission did not consider properly the criterion relating to the share of the market covered by the contested practice and also did not analyse correctly the duration of the rebates. >It follows, therefore, from all of the foregoing considerations that the analysis carried out by the commission is incomplete and, in any event, does not make it possible to establish to the requisite legal standard that the rebates at issue were capable of having, or were likely to have, anticompetitive effects, which is why the General Court annuls the decision. https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2022-01/cp220016en.pdf https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/202...

Simply disgusting, and difficult to understand. How is a market leader bribing OEMs not to use a competitor's product not the definition of anticompetitive behaviour and abuse of a dominant position?

belval 5y ago

I think it's because the case hinged on the outcome, not on the practice itself. The suit alleged that Intel had "killed" AMD with this practice and brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. The issue is, Intel is getting their asses handed to them right now by AMD so the argument seems pretty hollow in 2022. I am not saying this is good or bad, but that's the intuition behind the reversal I think. EDIT: Please don't shoot the messenger, I am just offering a conjecture, I am not even European or American.

kergonath 5y ago
> I think it's because the case hinged on the outcome, not on the practice itself. Yeah it sounds like it. My understanding from the summaries is that the commission failed to quantify the damage with enough accuracy and certainty. It sucks.
avanderveen 5y ago
To me it feels like the original fine may have influenced by that. It would have discouraged Intel from offering these rebates to OEMs, giving AMD a chance to slowly get back into laptops. At the time Intel's mobile CPUs were far superior, but the same could not be said for their integrated GPUs, but IIRC the rebates required that OEMs go full Intel (CPU, GPU, chipset, and WiFi).
- tarlinian 5y ago
  This doesn't particularly make sense. You can't even use non Intel chipsets with Intel CPUs and integrated GPUs are inherently tied to the CPU. (In the case of the discrete GPU segment, Intel didn't even have an offering.) The only place where alternatives are even technically possible are in WiFi where there is no impact on AMD.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    > You can't even use non Intel chipsets with Intel CPUs There's no theoretical reason for this. Nobody makes them because they won't be able to sell them, apparently, but they could make them.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    > You can't even use non Intel chipsets with Intel CPUs and integrated GPUs are inherently tied to the CPU. You used to be able to, but Intel cut off the rights to use their chipsets' interconnect. Before that point 'integrated on the chipset' was a valid way to do integrated graphics.
  - avanderveen 5y ago
    The last AMD chipset that supported Intel CPUs[1] was around the time of this fine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_690_chipset_series https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_690_chipset_series
soperj 5y ago
It's kind of hilarious, they had to stop the practice, and immediately somehow AMD is resurrected (because they can actually compete now), and so the fine no longer applies. If anything it proves that the practice was harmful.
- kansface 5y ago
  AMD was shipping inferior chips back then, now its Intel that is selling shit. Intel also seems to have been hit much harder by the new class of hardware vulns wiping out proportionally more of their historic advantage. I'd guess that 85% of the turn around has been because of differences in their offerings.
  - dralley 5y ago
    >AMD was shipping inferior chips back then But this is false. The reason Intel had to pay laptop OEMs to not use AMD's chips in the first place, was because in the time window in question (2003-2006, before the core2* family), AMD's chips were superior.
p_j_w 5y ago
"They didn't entirely succeed in their aims" seems like really terrible reasoning to me, and also has really bad long term consequences. If I'm a massive market leader like Intel then, I now have all the incentives in the world to use disgusting underhanded tactics to bury my competition. Worst case scenario, they get severely weakened like AMD was for years and I face no legal consequences. Best case scenario, I kill my only competitor and face a paltry $1B fine. If they are in fact using the reasoning you think they are, then they are even bigger idiots than I had previously thought.

me_me_me 5y ago

Because it doesnt matter what actually happened, but what lawyers can prove. The more you learn about the actual workings of justice systems, the more you see how unjust it. Especially wealthy vs poor people.

Beltalowda 5y ago
How do you know what happened if it can't be proven?
- Zenst 5y ago
  Most legal system have a guilty or innocent verdict. However, the Scottish legal system also has a 3rd verdict of "not proven". Which I personally feel is better as with most binary decision options, if they are not guilty then they are proven innocent, even if there is that grey area of doubt that would yield a "not proven" verdict, as appears to be the case here. Hopefully, somebody with more legal knowledge will step in and enlighten a bit more.
  - Beltalowda 5y ago
    As I understand it, "not proven" is effectively just the same as "innocent". See e.g.: http://dukeundergraduatelawmagazine.org/2018/12/06/scotlands-three-verdict-system-a-look-into-not-proven/ http://dukeundergraduatelawmagazine.org/2018/12/06/scotlands... I have the impression it's mostly there to protect against wrongful convictions, which seems very different from the "it doesnt matter what actually happened, but what lawyers can prove" what the comment I replied to said. The EU ruling here isn't a criminal trail with a jury system anyway, so quite different in any case.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  Illegal search for example, you will know what happened but evidence is inadmissible. So even though you know what happened you can't technically prove it as your proof cannot be taken into account.

vmception 5y ago

The public sector executive branch needs to learn how to make arguments in their judiciary just like private persons do

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

Because it's not a bribe. It would be anti competitive if they paid their competitors to not compete.

blibble 5y ago

because the EU commission are incompetent

kergonath 5y ago
They are usually competent when it comes to suing companies but yes, I agree and there is a worrying trend.
- blibble 5y ago
  the commission lost against Apple recently too

granzymes 5y ago

Because the EU commission didn't prove its case. There is a presumption of innocence in this field, and the commission has to produce evidence that an as-efficient-competitor would not be able to charge sustainable prices in the face of the rebate scheme. The court held that the commission made errors in its analysis and so did not meet the burden of proof. From the court's summary: >The commission did not consider properly the criterion relating to the share of the market covered by the contested practice and also did not analyse correctly the duration of the rebates. >It follows, therefore, from all of the foregoing considerations that the analysis carried out by the commission is incomplete and, in any event, does not make it possible to establish to the requisite legal standard that the rebates at issue were capable of having, or were likely to have, anticompetitive effects, which is why the General Court annuls the decision. https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2022-01/cp220016en.pdf https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/202...