Back in October last year, NVIDIA had its French offices raided by the local antitrust authorities as part of a crackdown on companies that the European Union (EU) suspected of anti-competitive behaviour in the “graphics sector.”
Fast forward to today, French antitrust regulators are preparing to charge NVIDIA for these alleged practices which, according to Reuters, will make it the first legal authority to do so against the GPU brand. Neither the French authorities nor NVIDIA has officially commented on the matter.
As a quick recap, NVIDIA’s French offices were raider last year as part of a larger investigation by the French authorities into the health of the cloud computing market. The investigation was aimed at determining if the company was “unfairly” squeezing out newer companies within the market, and it was determined that “The likelihood of a new operator being able to gain market share rapidly appears limited, excluding companies who are already powerful in other digital markets.”
If found guilty, not only does NVIDIA risk a ban from the French authorities, but the company risks a maximum penalty of 10% of its annual global revenue in fines. But that is assuming that the French government will pursue legislation against the tech giant, and that it will receive the highest punishment, which is highly unlikely.
(Source: Reuters, Tom’s Hardware)
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