By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. chipmaker Intel has received 515.55 million euros ($536 million) in default interest from EU antitrust regulators related to a 1.06 billion euro fine levied in 2009, EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera has told EU lawmakers.
Intel sued the European Commission for 593 million euros in 2022 after convincing Europe’s second-top court to scrap the fine.
Companies are increasingly turning to the courts to get the EU executive to pay default interest on reimbursed fines in annulled antitrust cases.
“The Commission paid Intel on 6 November 2024 the appropriate interest compensation of 515 547 908.15 euros,” Ribera told a European Parliament lawmaker in a written comment.
While the court dismissed the bulk of the commission’s decision, it backed the regulator’s finding against Intel’s payments to HP, Acer and Lenovo to halt or delay rival products, which resulted in another EU fine of 376 million euros to the company in 2023.
($1 = 0.9617 euros)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Chris Reese)
