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.

Clare said: "I find it very odd that they [the commission] conducted dawn raids on a retailer," according to the Financial Times.

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. ®