WASHINGTON — A global legal battle between the two largest makers of computer processors took an abrupt turn this week when the Federal Trade Commission opened a formal antitrust investigation of the Intel Corporation.
For years, Advanced Micro Devices, a smaller rival of Intel, has been scouring the world in search of regulators in Europe, Asia and the United States who would agree to prosecute Intel for what A.M.D. maintains are anticompetitive pricing practices.
The worldwide campaign — over a market that generates more than $225 billion in global sales each year — has cost both companies tens of millions of dollars in legal and public relations expenses. A.M.D. has met with considerable success in Europe, Japan and Korea.
In the United States, however, the quest had not gained much ground among state authorities or federal regulators appointed by President Bush, who have taken a less aggressive antitrust approach than their foreign counterparts.
But on Friday the federal approach toward the case began to change — and those changes could accelerate depending on the antitrust stance of the next administration and its regulatory appointees.
The investigation, into accusations that Intel’s pricing is intended to maintain a near monopoly on the microprocessor market, was authorized by William E. Kovacic, the new chairman of the trade commission, and has the support of the agency’s other commissioners, officials said.
It reversed a decision by his predecessor, Deborah P. Majoras, who had been blocking the formal inquiry for many months, frustrating other senior commission officials and some lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Ms. Majoras, a former senior official in the antitrust division at the Justice Department, where she was an architect of the Bush administration’s antitrust settlement with Microsoft in 2001, left the commission two months ago, and the seat remains vacant.
Since it will almost certainly be many months before the commission decides whether to make a case against Intel, as European and Asian regulators have already done, the investigation could mark an important early test for the next administration on antitrust policy.
Among the states, only the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, has publicly signaled his intention to review the matter. Other states have declined to take action. When the attorney general of California, Jerry Brown, rejected A.M.D.’s complaint this year, he said in The San Francisco Chronicle that he was “not barking at every truck that comes down the street.”
A.M.D. has accused Intel of systematically giving its customers — the world’s leading personal computer makers — large discounts, at times below Intel’s own manufacturing costs, in exchange for commitments not to do business with competitors. Intel has responded that its discounts were legitimate incentives, not offered below cost, and benefiting customers who can buy computers at lower prices.
Intel has also maintained that A.M.D. tried to make up in the courts for its failures in the marketplace.
While Intel has denied the allegations, A.M.D. executives are hoping the case will present an easy opportunity for the next administration to take a noticeably more aggressive approach to competition issues. Technically independent of the White House, the trade commission is led by appointees of the president.
D. Bruce Sewell, Intel’s senior vice president and general counsel, said that because American and foreign antitrust law are fundamentally different, the company is confident of vindication, regardless of the leadership of the Federal Trade Commission next year, when the new president can fill the vacant seat and name its own chairman.
Still, Intel has been planning to increase the size of its Washington operations, a move that could be helpful both for the antitrust case and a variety of other issues before Congress and the regulators that are important to the company.
The official signs of the heightened scrutiny by the commission came in recent days when Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and several of the world’s largest personal computer makers that buy semiconductors from the two companies began to receive subpoenas from the agency.
Commission officials have also been working closely with their foreign counterparts, and have had access to the same evidence that is being used abroad to make the cases against Intel.
Mr. Sewell said that Intel had been working closely with the trade commission on a less formal review that had been under way since 2006. He said the company would continue to cooperate with authorities.
A.M.D. executives said they were pleased with the commission’s decision.
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