According to Reuters, a document filed by the European Union on June 20 showed that U.S. chipmaker Intel demanded 593 million euros ($624 million) in interest damages from the EU. And just five months ago, Intel convinced the EU's Second High Court to drop a 1.06 billion euro antitrust fine against it.
According to Reuters, the European Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling last year that paved the way for such damage claims. The ruling requires EU enforcement agencies to pay interest on arrears for fines paid in withdrawn antitrust cases. The judge said the late payment of interest itself would also generate interest.
Intel's battle with the EU goes back 13 years (to 2009).
In 2009, the European Commission fined Intel $1.2 billion for preventing companies such as Dell, HP and Lenovo from buying chips from its rival AMD by providing them with kickbacks. The fine represents about 4 percent of Intel's $37.6 billion in sales in 2008.
In January, Intel won an appeal against the EU's $1.2 billion antitrust fine, and the European Commission returned the $1.2 billion fine to Intel.
Intel said its claim was based on the 1.25 percent refinancing rate implemented by the European Central Bank from May 2009, which should have been raised to 3.5 percent from August 2009 to February of this year. The total amount of interest claimed by Intel has been subtracted from the 38 million euros of interest already paid by the European Commission.
