Intel has been in the center of attention from more than one point of view over the last couple of years, and accusations of bribery and breaking anticompetitive laws are some of the less flattering. After settling with AMD it got sued by the Federal Trace Commission, which is now giving Intel more time to reach an agreement.
The FTC claimed in the suit that Intel had used threats and extorsion against partners to put Intel products ahead of AMD and NVIDIA. Further more, this had been going on systematically for several years and resulted in, more or less, a monopoly on the processor market and unfair advantages in the graphics segment.
Intel and FTC earlier agreed on a possible settlement instead of going to court. The exact content of this settlement was uncertain, but it was said to be favorable to especially NVIDIA that was more or less forced out of the chipset market by Intel.
FTC has now announced that the signing of the settlement has been postponed and moved to August 6th. Would Intel choose not to sign the settlement with the FTC the case will continue and eventually end up in court, something Intel certainly wants to avoid.
