Geeforcer, i guess you did not read my post earlier in this thread where i link to the EU rules/regulations, so i'll just do a quick copy/paste from there...
You can (and most likely will) ofcourse disagree, but i think most unbiased people would agree that nvidia are breaking those on atleast 2 accounts.
----- Copy / Paste -----
For those interested, here is some information about what the European Union considers illegal contacts, agreements and abuse of a dominant position.
(Link:
https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/sell-abroad/free-competition/index_en.htm )
Now, the most stand out part to me is this bit under the "Abuse of a dominant position":
-
Discriminate between customers
- Force certain
trading conditions on your business partners.
This is certainly what Nvidia is doing now, so it should be reported imho.
Illegal contacts and agreements
These agreements are known as
cartels. They are forbidden because they restrict competition. They can take many forms, and need not be officially approved by the companies involved. The most common examples of these practices are:
- Price fixing
- Market sharing
- Agreement on customer allocation
- Agreement on production limitation
- Distribution agreements between suppliers and re-sellers where, for example, the price charged to customers is imposed by the supplier.
All agreements and exchanges of information between you and your competitors that reduce your strategic uncertainty in the market (around your production costs, turnover, capacity, marketing plans, etc.) can be seen as anti-competitive.
Even
disclosing this kind of strategic information
unilaterally via mail, phone or meetings
could be seen as infringing this rule.
To be on the safe side:
- Do not fix prices or other trading conditions
- Do not limit production
- Do not share markets
- Do not exchange strategic information about your company.
Some agreements are
not prohibited - if they can be justified as benefiting consumers and the economy as a whole. One example is agreements on research & development and technology transfer. These cases are covered by the
Block Exemption Regulations .
Abuse of a dominant position
If your company has a large market share, it holds a dominant position and must take particular care not to:
- charge unreasonably high prices which would exploit customers
- charge unrealistically low prices which may drive competitors out of the market
- discriminate between customers
- force certain trading conditions on your business partners.
You (and everyone liking this post) missed a HUGELY important part:
GPP is available to ALL Nvidia partners under uniform terms. This makes this behavior non-discriminatory BY definition. Furthermore, terms and conditions of GPP do not in any way shape or form curtail volumes and prices of AIBs agreements with a competitive supplier, ergo no market sharing. This lack of fundamental understanding of what constitutes illegal practices is probably why Law Offices of Aggrieved AMD Internet Fan Club have yet to be poached by corporate General Council recruiters from around the world.
Let’s go through these together:
- Discriminate between customers
Is GPP participation availability universal and uniform? If the answer is yes, this does not apply. This is why unit volume contingent price discounts are fully legal: it doesn’t matter whether you can afford 10,000 units to get 15% discount, or, hell, “buy 4, get 1 free” deal on muffins at your local supermarket, as long as the same terms are accessable to everyone.
- Force certain trading conditions on your business partners.
You highlight the wrong term here, which is actually “
certain”. The illegal trading conditions are by-and-large the ones attempting to regulate your relationship with other suppliers by placing pricing and volume limitations on them; even the most far-fetched anti-GPP theories have failed to mention any of that.
The fact that you are even citing anti-cartel regulations shows just how off the mark your interpretation of the events is from reality: these actions from Nvidia are, if anything, a sign of intensifying competitive aggressives, also know as the exact opposite of attempting to form a cartel. I will humor you anyway:
Has Nvidia entered into an agreement with another producer to set (artificially high) unit prices across the market? Unless AMDs indignation is an Oscar-caliber performance while in reality the two are secretly colluding to rig the market, the answer is an obvious “No”. Next!
Largely same as above: Had Nvidia entered into an agreement with another supplier to segment the market? These agreements, which would have to with AMD, can be either vertical (I make high-end, you make low end) or horizontal (You only sell to AIB x, I only sell to AIB y) market segmentation, and not only
CLEARLY don’t exist, but would make all participants culpable. Next!
-
Agreement on customer allocation
Would, agaiin, have to be between Nvidia and AMD (“Only sell x numbers of units to AIB y, while I only sell n units to AIB m”), not happening, both would be liable, etc. Next!
-
Agreement on production limitation
Unless AMD’s chronic inability to launch high-end parts in volume has actually been a conniving ploy of epic proportions stemming from a secret agreement with Nvidia, we can safely conclude this one is not happening either. Next!
-
between suppliers and re-sellers where, for example, the price charged to customers is imposed by the supplier.
Not only would this again apply to both AMD and Nvidia, but considering cards with the same GPUs, be it GP104 or Vega64 are available at the variety of price points from multiple AIBs there is clearly no arrangement imposing universal re-seller pricing. I highly doubt there is one in GPP either, it had certainly not been reported.
- Do not fix prices or other trading conditions
- Do not limit production
- Do not share markets
- Do not exchange strategic informationabout your company.
Since this is the recap, I will do likewise and reiterate that price fixing, production quotas and market sharing are done via an agreement with another supplier (you can’t “fix” your own price) and there absolutely no evidence that AMD and Nvidia have formed a cartel. The only point not addressed in detail above is the “sharing stratigic information”. Just like all the others, this is a competitor-facing provision (all companies are allowed to share their plans with their partners) designers to prevent suppliers from inflating prices to by coordinating/anticipating each other’s natural production fluctuations, etc. Just like with all the other items, unless some rather amazing acting is taking place there is no stratigic coordination between the two.
- charge unreasonably high prices which would exploit customers
- charge unrealistically low prices which may drive competitors out of the market
- discriminate between customers
- force certain trading conditions on your business partners.
The last two items have been addressed elsewhere, but as far as pricing is concerned there has been no evidence that Nvidia pricing has been anything but highly competitive.
In conclusion, this post is pretty indicative of the overall quality of discourse in this thread that has been rife with some amazingly bad armchair lawyering, and most ironically, labeling highly competitive practices “anti competitive” because ones favored company finds competing inconvenient. The very fact that AMD is doing the public routine of “If Nvidia has been mean to you, blog at us” just goes to show that they have nothing of actionable legal substance, just sour grapes about having to open up the purse strings and pony up some additional marketing resources of their own, or as we like to call it in the real world, “actually compete”.
