Intel’s lawyer comes out fighting after EC fine

A you might expect, top Intel lawyer Bruce Sewell was not taking the massive EC fine against his company for anticompetitive behaviour lying down in a press conference just ended.

The chip giant’s general counsel said “the Commissioner has chosen to rely on pieces of evidence I would characterise as weak and chosen not to focus on pieces of evidence that contradict [those views]”.

He added that he had been “mystified” by the suggestion that PC buyers had been victimised by Intel’s behaviour, noting that the last 10 years had seen value in PCs improve markedly. He could not understand “how lowering prices and increasing functionality is bad for consumers”.

Sewell also questioned the notion that AMD had not been able to compete, suggesting that its rival has between 20 and 23 per cent market share.

He argued that any decision to focus on Intel was a fair and open choice. “Any company that chooses to source all its [processor] components from Intel should be allowed to do so,” he added.

Finally he refuted suggestions that Intel had not fully disclosed evidence, saying there was “no instance where Itried to hide something or have some some secret event”.

Despite contrasting the EC findings with those of Japanese regulators, Sewell said he saw no anti-American bias” in the EC findings.