Intel pays $6.5m to end New York lawsuit

Intel is close to winding up a series of antitrust actions against it around the world with an agreement with the New York attorney-general to terminate a lawsuit.

Intel said it would pay $6.5m to meet part of New York’s costs for the suit, which was filed in November 2009.

The world’s biggest chipmaker by revenues said in a statement that the agreement followed a December ruling that greatly reduced the scope of New York’s case.

The agreement “expressly states that Intel does not admit either any violation of law or that the allegations in the complaint are true, and it calls for no changes to the way Intel does business”, it said.

“We have always said that Intel’s business practices are lawful, pro-competitive and beneficial to consumers, and we are pleased this matter has been resolved,” said Doug Melamed, Intel’s general counsel.

New York’s original suit had alleged that Dell and other computer makers received billions of dollars in rebates from Intel in exchange for not using processors made by its rival, Advanced Micro Devices.

Intel agreed to pay AMD $1.25bn in 2009 in exchange for dropping all complaints against it and it later paid another rival chipmaker Nvidia $1.5bn on similar terms.

The Silicon Valley company has been investigated and fined by the European Commission as well as being the subject of inquiries by regulatory bodies in Japan and Korea.

It has also reached an agreement with the US Federal Trade Commission to use an open industry standard to make it easier for other chipmakers to connect their own products to its chips.