Korea Fair Trade Commission Investigating Intel

Online Staff -- Electronic News, 8/9/2005

Intel Corp. acknowledged Monday that South Korea has joined the European Commission (EC) and Japan in investigating certain aspects of its business practices.

In its quarterly Form 10-Q, filed Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its June quarter, Intel said that the Korea Fair Trade Commission had requested documents from Intel's Korean subsidiary. The documents pertain to marketing and rebate programs the chipmaker entered into with Korean PC manufacturers.

Intel said it is cooperating with the respective investigations in Europe, Japan and now Korea, and "expects that these matters will be acceptably resolved."

Last month EC officials searched several of Intel's offices in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom as part of its ongoing antitrust investigation. The EC also said at the time that it was also visiting the offices of European PC makers in the course of its Intel investigation.

This move came several months after the Japan Fair Trade Commission declared that the business practices of Intel's Japanese subsidiary with regard to its Japanese PC customers was in violation of Japan’s Antimonopoly Act concerning.

Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices has also launched antitrust lawsuits against Intel in Japan and here in the United States as well, this past June.