European Union regulators Friday charged Intel, the world's biggest computer chip maker, with abusing its dominant market position, a move which could eventually lead to fines being levied against the company.

The European Commission said it had sent a so-called "statement of objections" to Intel on July 26 alleging that it had tried to exclude its leading competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from the market.

The commission said it had come to the "preliminary view" that Intel had infringed EU anti-trust rules which prevent companies from abusing thei dominant market position.

The EU executive said Intel had acted against AMD by giving "substantial rebates" to computer makers for buying most of their x86 computer processing units, or CPUs, from Intel.

It also charged that Intel had made payments to manufacturers to get them to delay or cancel product lines using AMD chips and that it sold its own chips below cost on average to strategic customers in the server segment of the market.

These three types of conduct are aimed at excluding AMD from the market, the commission said.

It added that each action was provisionally considered to constitute an abuse of a dominant position in its own right.

However, the commission said that the three types of conduct reinforced each other and were part of a single overall anti-competitive strategy.

Intel has 10 weeks to reply to the commission statement and will then have the right to be heard by EU regulators.

"If the preliminary views expressed in the statement of objection are confirmed, the commission said it may ask Intel to cease the abuse and may impose a fine.

DPA

Güncelleme Tarihi: 28 Temmuz 2007, 01:58