Intel on Wednesday won an antitrust appeal at the Court of Justice of the European Union, managing to have its historic $1.3 billion fine issued in 2009 returned to a lower court for another examination. The latest turn of events may be a promising one for Google who recently surpassed the aforementioned figure when the EU antitrust watchdog hit it with a $2.7 million penalty for supposedly anti-competitive practices, ordering the company to immediately draft a plan of action on how it intends to stop exhibiting monopolistic behavior. While the two EU-issued fines differ in terms of severity, related remedial orders given to the two tech giants are somewhat similar, with both being vague enough to prompt criticism from proponents of Google and Intel who previously claimed that the EU wasn’t specific enough when making its requests.
Intel has been fighting the European Commission’s decision for well over eight years now, with its latest win signaling that the dispute is still years from being resolved and serving as a likely precursor to Google’s own future dealings with the antitrust watchdog on the Old Continent. The competition division led by Margrethe Vestager recently said it’s satisfied with Google and the manner in which it handled the initial proposal to comply with its measures, albeit the agency is still in the process of reviewing the thereof and has yet to allow Google to proceed with implementing its suggestions. The company itself already expressed strong disagreement with the European Commission’s decision but is still expected to attempt complying with any of its requests before proceeding to challenge the verdict in court, as it’s otherwise faced with the possibility of receiving daily fines amounting to up to five percent of its revenue, with its compliance deadline being set to expire at the end of September.
Google was accused of abusing the dominant position of its Internet search engine in an effort to stifle shopping and general price comparison services which competed with its own solution as part of a wider endeavor that the European Commission deemed monopolistic. The political bloc is also currently leading two more antitrust investigations against Google related to its AdWords advertising platform and the Android operating system, with both of these cases being expected to lead to preliminary verdicts later this year. While the Alphabet-owned tech giant still has a long road ahead of it, Intel’s case suggests that the company may have a chance to at least alleviate the Commission’s fine in the future.