14 DAY TRIAL // As you may or may not remember, AMD leveled some accusations against Intel back in 2009, or was it 2008? Anyway, accusations that Intel had offered unlawful rebates to retailers and PC makers like Lenovo, HP and Dell.
Basically, it offered those parties certain boons in exchange for only ordering products from Intel, leaving AMD to the wayside.
Intel was also found to have outright paid HP, Acer and Lenovo to delay release of AMD-based products (“naked restrictions” was the term used by the court).
These rebates basically crippled AMD's ability to sell its own processors, which, at the time, were pretty level, performance-wise, with Intel's.
The European Union ruled in favor of AMD back in 2009, issuing Intel a fine of $1.4 billion / €1.04 billion.
Now, the second-highest court has upheld that decision, which means that Chipzilla really has to pay AMD a fair bit of cash.
No doubt the latter will be all too satisfied, seeing as how it's still reorganizing itself, even if it does seem to be nearing the conclusion of its transformation.
The fine represents 4.15% of Intel's revenues for 2008, which, according to the EU Court, is a pretty mild punishment. It could have leveled as much as 10% as penalty.