How this telecommunications company’s legal victory in the EU could be “good news” for Intel

Intel is reportedly expecting good news in its fight against European Union (EU) antitrust authorities, as the regional telecom operator recently won a legal victory in a similar case. According to a report by the Reuters news agency, the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom won a legal battle with the EU antitrust authorities, which will force them to pay interest on part of the fine returned after the company’s appeal. The report said the US chipmaker could also be a winner as the company requested a similar amount of 593 million euros ($638.3 million).

In recent years, several companies have sued EU competition authorities over the waiver of default interest on fines in antitrust cases. The report noted that regional antitrust authorities face claims totaling approximately €800 million, with the Intel case being the highest profile case.


How Deutsche Telekom won against the EU
In 2014, the European Commission imposed a fine of EUR 31 million on Deutsche Telekom for charging unfair wholesale prices in Slovakia. The lower court later reduced the fine to EUR 19 million and ordered the Commission to pay interest of approximately EUR 1.8 million.

The EU competition authority repaid the difference to Deutsche Telekom, but did not pay interest for the period between payment and repayment.


Now the Court of Justice of the European Union based in Luxembourg (CJEU) has supported the appeal of German telecommunications operators and asked the regulatory authorities to pay interest.

The judges said: “The (European) Commission must pay interest on the financial penalties it wrongly imposed in competition cases and which it provisionally collected. This interest is intended to compensate the undertaking concerned, at the basic rate, for the loss of the use of the amount concerned.’

The CJEU also noted that the lower court was correct to find that the applicable interest rate that the Commission is obliged to pay to Deutsche Telekom, representing the refinancing rate of the European Central Bank (ECB), had increased by 3.5 percentage points, the report adds.


How this ruling could help Intel and other companies
Intel has demanded interest of EUR 593 million on a refunded fine of EUR 1.06 billion in connection with a case invalidated by EU regulators in 2022. In addition to Intel, many airlines that were fined for their participation in the air travel cartel are also demanding airlines interest on canceled fines.