The former boss of Dixons Store Group International (DSGI) says he was surprised at the European Commission raids on retailers earlier this week.

The EC raided a DSGI call centre in Hemel Hempstead, as well as the offices of German and French retailers on Monday as part of an investigation into alleged anti-competitive behaviour by Intel. John Clare spent 22 years at DSGI and ended up as chief executive. He retired last September.

He said Intel was paranoid about getting into trouble for abusing its dominant position and therefore insisted that all dealings with retailers followed a strict manual which limited the rebates they could offer and other aspects of trading.

The European Commission has been looking at Intel since 2001 following a complaint from rival AMD which accused Intel of effectively stitching up the European market and taking retaliatory action against retailers which also offered AMD-based machines. Intel has always denied such claims. ®

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