Intel said on Thursday it would agree to antitrust recommendations by the Japanese Federal Trade Commission, which called Intel to halt the practice of requiring PC makers to limit the use of competitors' chips in exchange for monetary rebates.
Intel, which accepted the recommendations, noted it disagreed with the agency's findings of fact underlying their allegations and the application of law in the recommendations.
Intel's Japanese subsidiary, Intel K.K., received the recommendations earlier this month, which called for the company to cease and desist such actions as offering favourable prices to companies that agreed not to use, or to limit, their use of other chipmakers' processors.
"Intel respectfully disagrees with the allegations contained in the recommendation, but in order to continue to focus on the needs of customers and consumers, and continue to provide them with the best products and service, we have decided to accept the recommendation," Bruce Sewell, Intel general counsel, said in a statement.
The company said it believed the Japan FTC's allegations misinterpreted important aspects of business practices and failed to take into account the competitive landscape that it and its customers compete in.
"They misrepresented some of our business practices. There was no damage to our customers due to discounting, and the consumers weren't taken into account at all [by the investigation]," said Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesman.
The formal cease-and-desist order is expected to take effect within a month to several months, said Hiroshi Yamada, director of third investigation division of the Japan FTC. And should the Japanese FTC determine the chip giant has violated its agreement, the company could be subject to criminal prosecution, he added.
"We issued the findings of fact and concluded Intel violated the monopoly act," Yamada said. "We believe the findings of fact are true, but Intel is not required to accept the findings of fact, when they accept the recommendations."
The agency's warning was the second against a US-based computer industry giant. It issued a similar warning against Microsoft last summer, which the software giant appealed.
Intel said it still believes it will be able to provide competitive pricing within the limitations of the order. But whether it will ultimately affect its sales overall in Japan has yet to be seen.
"We'll have to see as time goes on," Mulloy said.
AMD declined to comment on whether its business in Japan will increase due to the agreement.
But Michael Simonoff, an AMD spokesman, said: "While it's a step forward that Intel is accepting the recommendations, it's bewildering that even when presented with the deliberate and systematic antitrust behaviour, Intel refuses to admit the facts."
Talkback
Intel's comment doesn't make sense. For last few years, leading Japanese PC vendors have provided us with at most two non-Intel models per company among dozens of "Intel-inside" models. It looks quite unnatural even though Intel's aggressive advertisement made a great success in Japan. Of course, Japanese vendors business practices should be blamed, too.