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EC to drop Intel antitrust investigation

Matt Loney ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 04 Feb 2002 15:12 GMT

The European Commission is to drop its competition investigation into Intel, according to reports.

According to the Financial Times, the competition commissioner Mario Monti said that the decision was one of a number of measures agreed at a weekend meeting with Charles James, head of the US Justice Department's antitrust division.

An EU source told Reuters on Monday: "The European Commission will soon drop its investigation against Intel Corporation."

Intel declined to comment.

The Commission had been considering two complaints against Intel. One about chipsets had been withdrawn; the other, alleging that Intel has abused its dominant position in Windows-compatible microprocessors, is now expected to be rejected. This second complaint dealt with business practices employed by Intel in its "Intel Inside" PC vendor rebate programme. If found guilty, Intel could have faced a fine of up to 10 percent of its worldwide revenue.

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