EU antitrust regulators raid Intel office

European Union antitrust regulators raided an Intel Corp. office and computer retailers Tuesday in search of evidence they may have broken rules to ensure competition in the market for computer chips, the European Commission and Intel said.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy confirmed that the company’s Munich, Germany, office had been raided and said the company would cooperate closely with the investigation.

Europe’s largest consumer electronics retailer, Germany-based Media Markt, said it also was raided, as was Britain’s DSG group, which owns Dixons, Currys, PC City and PC World.

The surprise inspections were the EU’s first major move in response to complaints from Intel’s smaller rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which alleged that Intel pressed major stores to avoid computers using AMD chips.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, the world’s biggest chip maker, already was facing formal EU charges of monopoly abuse for below-cost customer rebates and pricing that the EU says undercut AMD and discouraged manufacturers from building computers with AMD’s chips.

The raids focused on the final link in the supply chain: the stores that select computers to sell to the public. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD claims that bullying tactics by Intel shut out all of its rivals.

Intel sells more than three-quarters of all microprocessors, the brains of computers, that use Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system.