AMD is
involved in an antitrust case against Intel which argues that the
world's largest chipmaker has behaved in a monopolistic way. Some
of the claims related to its behaviour in Germany, the UK, Taiwan
and Japan. Observers say those claims represent around half of
AMD's case.
A judge has now ruled that those allegations cannot be heard by
the district court of Delaware because they are outside its
jurisdiction. AMD is said to be thinking of appealing the ruling.
It is also conducting parallel cases outside of the US.
"As this US litigation is joined by global antitrust
investigations, it is clear that Intel cannot escape the
consequences of its illegal monopoly abuses," said AMD's vice
president of legal affairs Tom McCoy.
There is a live European case and the European Commission raided
Intel offices last year. Earlier this month the Commission took
over an existing German case involving allegations that Intel
forced a German retailer into stocking only Intel products.
Raids have also taken place in South Korea. Japan's Fair Trade
Commission ruled in 2005 that Intel did abuse monopoly power.
AMD claims that Intel made customers sign exclusive deals with
it and offered rebates on Intel chips if they did not buy AMD
technology. It says that PC makers were threatened with retaliation
if they supported AMD.
Intel used to have a huge market lead over AMD, but chips from
AMD can now be found in Dell computers and Intel's market share has
been hit. That competition from AMD was blamed for Intel's recent
decision to cut 10% of its staff, 10,000 employees.
