BetaNews has confirmed this morning that a widely disseminated story first published by Financial Times Deutschland, which said the European Commission was preparing to issue sales restrictions on Intel, is false.

The FT story, which appears here in a poor translation from German, stated that the EC was preparing to issue a decision that would force Intel to refrain from giving preferred customers in Europe any kind of discounts. Allegations of Intel playing favorites with certain customers, especially for preferring Intel over AMD, has been central to AMD's worldwide antitrust battle with the market share leader.

Using adjectives he isn't normally known to use, EC spokesperson Jonathan Todd called the latest FTD report "irresponsible journalism," in a statement to the press this afternoon, Brussels time.

In a response to BetaNews' inquiry this morning, Todd reiterated, "There is no preliminary or internal decision on the case, and we have an active, ongoing antitrust investigation."

Intel corporate spokesperson Chuck Mulloy showed BetaNews this morning his initial statement on the matter, which began, "To the best of our knowledge, no decision has been made." Mulloy indicated that Intel's knowledge was apparently vindicated, and added that any and all reports of such an event should be treated as speculation.

To that end, he declined comment on our question regarding whether Intel predicts its market share would remain steady, were the EC to impose such measures.