Intel and the New York AG

Oh what a fun morning. First history is attempted to be re-written by DT... and now yet another Intel event.

http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2008/jan/jan10a_08.html

The New York Attorney General has officially launched an Anti-Trust investigation into Intel Corporation. My gut reaction is to ask why an investigation was even needed in the first place. Intel has already been found guilty in the Japanese market, back in 2005. Now, if I remember my World War II post-history correctly, a lot of Japan's financial and banking infrastructure was based off of US models. Many of the templates concerning the regulations of either were adopted by the relatively new Japanese government in the years following the surrender. I recall that when the subject of Intel's anti-trust actions came up before the Japan version of the FTC, the rules and regulations concerning anti-trust actions were similar across both US and Japanese laws due to the imprint the US had left in the restructure of a modern Japan.

Ergo, if the laws are as similar as I recall them to be, it is possible that the evidence submitted to Japan could be re-submitted to the US. Ergo, if Intel was already found guilty on that evidence once, they would probably be found guilty again.

The question then is whether or not the New York AG would accept the evidence submitted to the Japanese, or even if the AG could accept the evidence that was submitted back in 2004 and 2005.

The question is also raised if Intel would be allowed to settle in order to avoid a court-room guilty verdict, which is what Intel managed to do with the Japanese. My opinion is that Intel probably will push for a settlement rather than avoid the disaster that would be associated with being a state-level criminal.