A document released by the European Union on the 20th shows that Intel, a US chipmaker, filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice against a judgment that the EU had only revoked after 13 years, asking the European Commission to compensate its interest loss of 593 million euros (about 624 million euros). Dollar). Just five months ago, Intel persuaded the EU's second highest court to withdraw its 1.06 billion euro antitrust fine.

The European Commission, the EU's permanent executive body, fined Intel 1.06 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in 2009 after it found that Intel had abused its dominant position in the global market for processors and improperly excluded competition through "rebate" marketing. Intel has repeatedly appealed and pushed for a retrial for several years. The European Permanent Court of Justice reversed the sentence in January this year, arguing that the European Commission failed to properly assess the economic impact of Intel's "rebate" program.

After losing the case, the European Commission returned the fines paid by Intel and its interest in February. According to the Official Journal of the European Union, Intel launched a lawsuit at the end of April, asking the European Commission to pay it the late payment interest incurred in these years.

Intel's claim is based on a ruling last year by the European Court of Justice, the EU's top arbitration body. The ruling found that once the EU court reversed the anti-competitive case, the European Commission returned the penalty and related interest to the parties. The judge noted at the time that the penalty interest itself would also accrue late payment interest until it was repaid.

Intel said it calculated the overdue interest that should be returned by the European Commission based on the benchmark interest rate of the European Central Bank, which was raised in May 2009 and increased from August to February this year, minus the 38 million euros in interest already paid by the European Commission. Forehead.

Intel's battle with the EU goes back to 2009

In 2009, the European Commission fined Intel $1.2 billion for offering rebates to Dell, HP, Lenovo and others to prevent them from buying chips from rival AMD. The fine represents about 4 percent of Intel's $37.6 billion in 2008 sales.

In January, Intel won an appeal against the EU's $1.2 billion antitrust fine, and the European Commission returned the $1.2 billion fine to Intel.

Intel said its claim was based on the ECB's refinancing rate of 1.25 percent, which was implemented in May 2009, and should have been raised to 3.5 percent from August 2009 to February this year. The total interest requested by Intel has been subtracted from the 38 million euros already paid by the European Commission.