Intel has filed a petition with the European Union’s Court of First Instance seeking to annul its €1.06 billion antitrust fine.

In the application, Intel alleges that the European Commission was mistaken in ruling that the firm engaged in anti-competitive practices, that the investigation was flawed, and that there is no evidence of consumer harm.

The newest filing comes as an addition to the July 23 appeal which claimed that the EC violated Intel’s human rights. The annulment does not repeat that claim, but instead alleges that the Commission’s investigators failed to meet the standard of proof. The petition notes that the EC never established a direct link between the company’s OEM rebates and direct harm to consumers.

First, it contends that the Commission errs in law by:

(a) finding that the conditional discounts granted by Intel to its customers were abusive per se by virtue of them being conditional without establishing that they had an actual capability to foreclose competition;

(b) relying on a form of exclusionary abuse, termed ‘naked restrictions’, and failing to conduct any analysis of foreclosure (even a capability or likelihood to foreclose) inrespect thereof;

(c) failing to analyse whether Intel’s rebate arrangements with its customers were implemented in the territory of the European Community and/or had immediate, substantial, direct and foreseeable effects within the European Community.

OEM rebates played a significant role in the EU’s largest-ever fine. The EU’s antitrust commission found that Intel paid so-called “volume rebates” to OEMs to keep AMD-powered shipments below 20% of the total volume. Other charges included steep rebates to make Intel chips the only economical choice, and threats of supply cuts to persuade shipments of Intel PCs.

In addition to the Intel’s claims of legal negligence, it also claims that the EC failed to consider a key Intel witness who could have provided exculpatory evidence.

It is not immediately clear how the Court of First Instance will proceed, though it is traditionally unreceptive to corporate dissent in these cases.