A federal judge in Delaware has dismissed portions of a class-action lawsuit filed against Intel Corporation which alleges that the company raised computer prices through anticompetitive conduct. The dismissed portions cover the chip maker’s activity outside U.S.

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Farnan, in a ruling issued Wednesday, said that a U.S. court has no jurisdiction over the foreign conduct claims in a lawsuit that seeks monetary damages for U.S. consumers and businesses who purchased PCs with Intel chips.

The ruling means that even if the court found Intel guilty of forcing up prices, the plaintiffs could not calculate the damages they won by including PC sales by foreign vendors. They would have to base their claim solely on sales by U.S. vendors.

The decision, however, does permit foreign consumers and AMD to continue pressing their cases because Farnan also ruled they could use foreign evidence to build a domestic case against Intel.

“AMD and the class [action suit] would need to sue Intel in foreign jurisdictions to recover monetary damages that were incurred outside the U.S.,” AMD spokesman Michael Silverman told IDG News Service. “From our perspective — and I suspect the class would say the same — the critical piece was to gain access to that foreign discovery. In both cases, the judge has allowed that access.”

With the present ruling, Santa Clara-based Intel had filed motions asking for damages in the cases to be limited domestically.

Earlier, Intel Corp. admitted on Monday that it had lost many internal e-mails that the company is required to produce in a lawsuit brought against it by Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

The lost declaration however may be too general and created suspicion.

Related:

Entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2007 at 7:24 pm under Intel, Legal.

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