Dixons condemns AMD anti-trust accusations

Dixons has publicly condemned AMD for allegedly implicating it falsely in a recent anti-trust filing in the US

Retail giant Dixons is considering legal action after being named by AMD in its anti-trust filings against arch rival Intel.

AMD has accused the chip giant of pressurising partners to restrict AMD’s market share. In papers filed with the district court in Delaware, Maryland, AMD has recently named 38 companies, including Dixons, Dell, Sony, NEC and Hitachi, which it claims were pushed into exclusive, or partly exclusive, deals with Intel.

In a statement, Dixons said the allegations by AMD were “poorly researched and false” and that Dixons was a “customer demand-driven business, not a rebate-driven business”.

Hamish Thompson, Dixons director of media relations, told CRN: “We are considering our legal options at the moment. We are very disappointed that we’ve been included in this dispute between the two suppliers. The facts are not correct – the market share figure is way out of line for a start.”

AMD has alleged that Dixons had agreed to keep AMD’s share of business below 10 per cent.

In a statement, Dixons said: “Customer choice is a core ingredient of our promotional strategy and, for the moment, we still continue to promote and sell the products of both companies – unlike other competitors.”

The statement continued: “We have not, and do not, take part in questionable activities that interfere with the sales of another supplier’s products. DSG Retail’s contractual arrangements with all its suppliers comply with relevant legal requirements.”

Jens Drews, director of government relations at AMD, told CRN: “We stand by what we have said. We want to break the stranglehold that Intel has on the market. We needed to take drastic steps to break up its monopoly.

“We wanted to open the eyes of the courts and the public to the extent of the illegal behaviour Intel has been engaging in, which is why we decided to name the 38 companies. They are our customers as well, but we had to get it all out in the open.

“Our beef is not with these companies, it is with Intel. They are victims of Intel’s behaviour,” he alleged.