The European Union’s ombudsman has issued a rare rebuke of the bloc’s antitrust regulator, saying it failed to record “potentially exculpatory” evidence from a witness in its investigation of chip giant Intel. The case ended in May with a finding of monopoly abuse and a €1 billion ($1.44 billion) fine against Intel. The ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has no authority to change the outcome, but he is one of the few independent checks on the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, reported the Wall Street Journal. The ombudsman’s report followed a July 2008 complaint from Intel. Diamandouros said the commission committed “maladministration” by not recording in the case file a formal account of an August 2006 meeting between commission investigators and a senior Dell executive who was providing evidence in the case. The reports says that the executive, who isn’t identified, is believed to have told investigators that Dell viewed the performance of Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices as “very poor.”
EU Antitrust Regulator Reprimanded over Intel
Dell report that the performance of Intel rival AMD was “very poor” was not recorded in the case.
August 10, 2009