AMD files antitrust complaint against Intel

AMD today filed a 48-page antitrust complaint against Intel. The 48-page complaint explains in detail how Intel has unlawfully maintained its monopoly in the x86 microprocessor market by engaging in worldwide coercion of customers from dealing with AMD. It identifies 38 companies that have been victims of coercion by Intel -- including large scale computer-makers, small system-builders, wholesale distributors, and retailers, through seven types of illegality across three continents.

Some of the complaints:

Forcing major customers to accept exclusive deals,

Withholding rebates and marketing subsidies as a means of punishing customers who buy more than prescribed quantities of processors from AMD,

Threatening retaliation against customers doing business with AMD,

Establishing quotas keeping retailers from selling the computers they want, and

Forcing PC makers to boycott AMD product launches.

"Everywhere in the world, customers deserve freedom of choice and the benefits of innovation -- and these are being stolen away in the microprocessor market," said Hector Ruiz, AMD chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer. "Whether through higher prices from monopoly profits, fewer choices in the marketplace or barriers to innovation -- people from Osaka to Frankfurt to Chicago pay the price in cash every day for Intel's monopoly abuses."

More details about the case can be found at AMD's website