The New York Attorney General has ended its anti-trust action against Intel on procedural grounds with Intel paying $6.5m towards the attorney-general’s legal costs.
A statement from the attorney-general’s office says: "It's important to note that our claims were dismissed on procedural, not substantive grounds. We continue to believe that those claims which were asserted under the previous administration had merit."
Part of the grounds for dismissal were the US Statue of Limitations putting a limit on the time in which conduct can remain actionable. The judge had ruled that only actions by Intel in the last three years could be considered in the case. The attorney-general had sought to look at a six year period.
When the US FTC conducted an anti-trust probe against Intel it found, in 2010, according to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz that: ""We believe Intel stepped well over the line of aggressive competition on the merits, and engaged in unfair, deceptive and anti-competitive conduct. The sum total of all this anti-competitive conduct unfairly prevented companies from competing, bolstered Intel's monopoly, and harmed consumers by stunting innovation, diminishing quality, and keeping prices higher than they would otherwise be."
Intel has been found guilty of anti-competitive conduct by the authorities in Japan, Korea and Europe, by the US FTC and US SEC, and has settled a civil case with AMD. It is thought to have paid out some $3bn to settle these cases.
