The world's leading chipmaker Intel Corp, which has been squabbling with the European Union since 2001 - after its closest rival in the PC processor market, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), filed an antitrust complaint - may soon be fined for what the European Commission considers its practice of "naked restrictions" to competition.

According to sources, EU antitrust regulators opine that that Intel has violated the antitrust rules, by illicitly paying computer-makers for either deferring or calling off the launch of their products that contained chips made by its rival AMD.

In July last year, the EC charged Intel with abuse of its dominant position in the European chip market, whereby Intel was accused of offering inducements to European retailers for not purchasing processors manufactured by AMD. Specifically, Intel had paid "a leading original equipment manufacturer (OEM)" to holdup the launch of an AMD CPU-based product, giving it "substantial" rebates for buying Intel CPUs.

For resorting to such a business tactic to keep competition at bay, Intel may be penalized by the EC, and ordered to change its competition-thwarting practices. Though there has been no disclosure of the fine that may be imposed on Intel, but going by the precedent, it will be a substantial amount - in March 2004, the EC demanded 497 million euros from Microsoft for its alleged abuse of market dominance!