Intel Korea in Anti-trust Raid

Competitor and litigator AMD was quick to point out that the Korean offices of leading CPU Intel fabricator, Intel were raided by the Korean Fair Trade Commission.

Supporting the action, Thomas M. McCoy, AMD executive vice president, legal affairs and chief administrative officer said in a statement that: “The dawn raids in Korea make it abundantly clear that competition authorities worldwide are intensifying their investigative efforts into Intel’s anticompetitive business practices because they have good reason to believe evidence of illegal monopoly abuse is there to be found.”

Harkening back to action last year, the AMD statement went on to quote McCoy: “Similar dawn raids conducted by competition authorities in Japan revealed evidence of illegal business practices that violated that country’s Antimonopoly Act. The JFTC ruled that Intel conditioned deals with Japanese PC OEMs based on excluding competition. Last year, the European Commission also conducted dawn raids across Europe to gather evidence of Intel monopoly abuse within the European Union. How many raids in how many countries need to happen before Intel accepts responsibility for its anticompetitive actions and ceases its unlawful business practices?”

At issue in Korea is the mega chip maker’s business dealings with four South Korean PC makers, which AMD believes are victims of Intel’s monopoly power.

Currently in pre-trial discovery before the US court system, AMD’s has lodged a suit against Intel claiming it abuses its monopoly power to maintain an stranglehold on the chip business. AMD alleges that “worldwide coercion of customers” buy Intel prevents them from dealing with AMD and identifies 38 companies that have been “victims”.