The European Union carries out more attacks on the premises of Intel to continue to arm themselves in their fight against chipmaker

More bad news came for the legal the world’s largest chipmaker, Intel, on Tuesday. Intel Munich offices were the target of another round of antitrust attacks from the European Commission (EC). These German raids were confirmed by a public announcement from Intel.

Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel, said: “I can confirm that there has been a raid on our offices in Munich. As is our normal practice, we are cooperating with the authorities.”

Jonathan Todd, spokesman for the Commission in Brussels also said, “I can confirm that Commission officials have carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of a manufacturer of central processing units (CPUs).”

Todd cited that the raids were carried out to investigate alleged violations of the rules against the abuse of a dominant position and / or restrictive trade practices. Intel faces a hearing on March 11 and 12 over charges that participated in the price slashing, in which retail prices to the court below the cost of production and is accused of offering substantial discounts on the head-in its effort to wipe less competitor, Advanced Micro Devices, out of the market.

The ruling in these hearings may depend a bit on the analysis of evidence found during the investigation. However, the evidence aside, Intel faced a hostile environment significantly in the hearings, as the European Commission is very aggressive because of a heady $ 690M USD ruling against Microsoft. With the EC to the press to seek more charges against Microsoft, the investigation of Apple, Intel and pricing, which clearly is prepared to take a tough stance on what they say are flagrant abuses of the market system - and that benefits a bit In the financial wealth of the option. Chipmaker AMD has consistently complained about alleged abuses by Intel and has encouraged the European Union and other governmental agencies to aggressively investigate his rival.

If it is ruled by the European Commission that Intel broke antitrust laws, according to European Union legislation, it might be fine Intel up to 10 percent of its global revenue. Intel total revenue for 2007 came in at above $ 40 USD B, so fine could have a ceiling of about $ 4B. The EC could not implement the maximum fine, however, Intel and most likely receive a fine of about $ 500M $ 1B USD, similar to the Microsoft ruling.