Intel and AMD end their legal disputes, but regulators may not be placated

THOSE who were looking forward to a big battle between Intel and trustbusters will be disappointed. On Thursday November 12th the world’s largest chipmaker and its archrival, AMD, announced that they had signed an agreement to end all outstanding legal disagreements between them, including antitrust litigation and patent disputes. This will take a lot of wind out of the cases against Intel brought by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.

The agreement, which the two companies had been negotiating since April, is a full peace deal which should prove mutually beneficial. Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion in cash, allow its rival to outsource the production of its chips (which are based on Intel patents) and abide by a set of “business-practices provisions”. In return AMD will drop all litigation against Intel and withdraw all of its regulatory complaints worldwide. …