CHIP MAKER AMD’s top legal executive has welcomed a decision this week by the European appeals court in Luxembourg to reject Intel’s request to delay the European Commission’s anti-trust inquiry into the dominant manufacturer of computer processors.
“We are not surprised by the court’s decision to reject Intel’s application,” said Tom McCoy, AMD’s executive vice-president for legal, corporate and public affairs, who visited Ireland this week. “The order is entirely consistent with the continuous and clear case law on this issue and Intel’s appeal was simply an attempt to delay the commission’s decision-making process.”
AMD views Ireland as home turf for Intel, which employs almost 5,000 people here. AMD has a market share of 11-13 per cent in Ireland compared to about 20 per cent in other European markets where manufacturers such as HP, Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba ship systems with AMD chips.
It might easily have been AMD that benefited from investing here. When Mr McCoy, who is half-Irish but was on his first visit to the State, joined the firm in 1995, it had a property in Greystones, Co Wicklow and was planning to build a manufacturing facility here. It subsequently opted to build a “mega-fab” in Dresden, Germany, but he says that was not “a decision against Ireland”.
AMD hived off its manufacturing last year in a $5.7 billion joint venture with Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), an Abu Dhabi state-owned venture capital firm. The investment will see a second factory completed in Dresden and a new facility being built in upstate New York.
Mr McCoy said the New York plant will tap into the “tremendous human and technology resource pool” in the region, create a facility close to IBM which it is partnering with to develop high-end semiconductor products, and satisfy customer demands for “geographic diversity in our supply chain”.
He did not believe Irish manufacturing is dead: “Ireland has long established itself as a great country to do business . . . and you can successfully manufacture high-end technology. Intel has proven this is a great venue.”
AMD has instigated anti-trust complaints in the US, Asia and Europe over Intel’s alleged exclusivity payments, false rebate schemes and claims that it uses predatory pricing to ensure PC makers go with “Intel inside”.
Although the commission made an initial finding that Intel abused a dominant position, the investigation has been ongoing since 2000. Given AMD is locked in a technology arms race with its bigger rival, in which it won a number of key battles in recent years, does it not tire of the legal wranglings? The answer was “no”. Mr McCoy also pointed to the fact that consumer agencies have joined its actions. “The consumer organisations in Europe have done their homework. They have concluded that, contrary to what Intel says, there is clear demonstrable consumer harm from its tactics.”
