Korea’s antitrust regulator said Thursday it will order Intel Corp. to pay $25.4 million for violating fair trade rules.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission said in a statement it was issuing the order because the semiconductor giant offered rebates to South Korean computer companies to undercut competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Intel immediately criticized the ruling and said it would consider its options, including a possible appeal.
“We’re disappointed and we completely disagree with the findings,” Bruce Sewell, Intel senior vice president and general counsel, said in Seoul.
The KFTC last year charged Intel with violating South Korean antitrust laws after completing a two-year probe.
The commission said that Intel provided rebates to Samsung Electronics Co. and Trigem Computer Inc. to not use central processing units, or CPUs, manufactured by AMD, Intel’s main competitor.
Samsung spokeswoman Lee Soo-jeong said the company had no comment.
Trigem spokesman Bang Yeong-il said that rebates were used legally for joint marketing.
Intel has been scrutinized by regulators in several countries and the European Union over allegations it abused its market dominance to pressure computer makers and undermine rivals.
Intel dominates the world market for microprocessors, the electronic brains of computers.
The company, based in Santa Clara, Calif., has faced numerous legal battles over how it maintains its market position.
One of Intel’s biggest legal headaches is a landmark antitrust lawsuit AMD filed in June 2005 in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware — and is still pending — accusing its much-larger rival of illegally maintaining and protecting a monopoly in microprocessors by threatening computer makers and forcing them into exclusive deals.
A victory by Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD could mean potentially billions of dollars in damages. Trial is scheduled for 2009. The lawsuit is currently in the document-swapping phase of the legal process called “discovery.”
Intel has also been hit with antitrust charges in the European…