It’s shocking that Acer, HP, and Lenovo all accepted incentives (money) to monopolise the market, and are just as guilty in my opinion.
This seems to be black and white, obviously inappropriate; yet has taken decades and still unresolved.
Really…
Personally, I think that all the stuff like this should also be illegal, even without a monopoly. Exclusivity contracts and stuff with that goal should be illegal.
However, we'll have to pass new laws to get there.
If Intel comes to my computer company and offers me a sweet rebate, what do I know about what they're doing with my competitors?
So if it were illegal to receive money to help a company monopolize their market, how would the company receiving the funds be able to determine that's the case?
If I make wheat and you run a bakery I might offer you a 30% discount for the next 5 years, but only if I'm your only wheat supplier.
This sort of arrangement allows us to spread the risk of market uncertainties over that period.
I can then build extra capacity, and you get a cheaper product, or one with less price uncertainty.
Maybe we should do away with this, and say that bakeries must buy wheat like airlines buy fuel, i.e. through more complex financial instruments.
Now, I may be doing this because I'm one of only two companies making wheat, and I'm looking to drive the other one out of business. That's basically what Intel was doing here.
But it's not clear to me that we should conclude that exclusivity deals in general are bad.
Say I'm a local wheat producer. I sign a deal with the local bakery. That stops a multi-national from undercutting me.
The contract cements the benefit that both I and the bakery have from mutually working together, and removes the risk to both parties of some outside party damaging both of us.
In other words exclusivity works for small companies in spaces dominated by behemoths.
Think craft beer and local pub.
Even if you were to get there first, when the contract comes up for renewal the multi-national can offer terms that would be unsustainable for a small producer.
I would be bummed if my local tap roomed signed an exclusivity contract with a local brewery. These days there often many local breweries and new ones open regularly. It would be a shame for the local taproom to miss out on offering a wider range of beers because they got locked into an exclusivity contract.
If you are providing a discount or kickback or whatever for exclusivity, that is an anticompetitive behavioral, regardless of size.
In fact in 2007 Dell would have made a loss if it weren't for the Intel kickbacks.
It goes down to "are exclusive deals illegal ?" and I'd assume it could go as far as small companies accepting to get bought by the market behemoth, or employees getting paid under no-compete contracts to not work at rival companies.
If Intel gonna say "we literally will pay you more to use our parts", that's pure profit to them, customers still gonna buy it because if they cared more about the CPU than the rest of the value propositon of Dell/Lenovo they wouldn't buy from them in the first place.
Generally the person who is bribing has higher penalty, because she is an instigator, but both are culpable.
It makes sense, by accepting the bribe, you do damage to some third party. "I was stealing, but only because he offered me money"... nope.
At least in my country and I assume in the rest of EU countries.
Not sure about that.
"I will only stock your product if you can make the deal sweeter for me than your competitor is offering to do."
Bribes are paid by (or directed to be paid to someone else by) the person who is buying (or a sales representative selling) and their employer never sees the money. That's why direct incentives to salespeople (spiffs) should be authorized in writing, by the employer. An example of a bribe would be a purchasing agent requiring me to donate 5% of the deal value to their church to get a deal.