Despite a recent settlement with chief rival AMD, the legal troubles for Intel Corp. are not yet over. According to BusinessWeek and other outlets, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing to expand its probe of the processor firm.
According to reports, the FTC’s investigations are being expanded to determine the nature of Intel’s relationship with NVIDIA. The two companies have shared an icy relationship since Intel forced NVIDIA to halt chipset development with a suit alleging that the firm’s chipset license did not extend to CPUs, such as the Core i7, with integrated memory controllers.
“The FTC wants to determine whether a lawsuit filed by Intel earlier this year amounts to an effort to slow Nvidia’s advance in the graphics chip market and intimidate computer makers from doing business with Nvidia,” BusinessWeek claims.
This new chapter is a part of an ongoing investigation being conducted by the FTC to assess the veracity of anti-trust allegations made by Advanced Micro Devices. The two firms received subpoenas related to the investigation last July, but the case recently cooled as the companies announced a comprehensive settlement which ended all ongoing anti-trust and patent litigation. Though Intel was no doubt hoping to close the books and move on, the FTC cannot do so until all outstanding anti-trust concerns are settled.
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