Better late than never
Foer told HEXUS he was puzzled by Intel's insistence on clinging to its pricing strategy, despite being found guilty of anti-competitive measures in Europe, Japan and Korea. "I just don't understand why Intel isn't backing down on this," he said, adding "unless it has no confidence in the quality of its products."
However, Melamed claims the FTC rushed into the case without fully investigating matters, blasting the commission for potentially costing taxpayers "tens of millions of dollars.
"It is the normal practice of antitrust enforcement agencies to investigate the facts before filing suit. The Commission did not do that in this case," said Melamed.
But Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America told HEXUS the FTC had done exactly what it had to do.
"The EU, Japan and Korea, have all concluded that the practices were anti-competitive and Intel has settled a private law suit. The FTC would have looked silly if they could not see what was so obvious to everybody else," he said.
Robert Lande, venable professor of law at the University of Baltimore agreed, and added that the FTC had taken longer to file suit because this case was much broader than any of the ones which had come before, involving not just CPUs but also GPUs.
"Intel has been charged with using the same kind of tactics it used which got a guilty verdict in Europe, Korea and Japan," said Lande, who went on to say "if anyone would ask me if it was surprising the FTC chose to finally file suit, I'd say no, it's not at all surprising."
"The only question is why the FTC has chosen to come in a day late and a dollar short, but the answer to that is probably that this case is much broader."
