South Korea accused Intel of monopoly

After two years of investigation, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) on September 11 officially ruled that Intel violated South Korea's antitrust laws. Currently, the managers have not yet agreed to a penalty.

Thus, the world's leading chip manufacturer must receive a new failure on the 'legal battlefield' with antitrust agencies in some countries. Most of them accuse Intel of abuse of dominance in the market to squeeze competitors and PC makers. Intel dominates 3/4 of the market share of the global microprocessor chip market.

Nah Young-kyu - an official of KFTC - said the results of the investigation were now submitted to the board of directors for discussion and reached a final conclusion on the penalty against Intel.

Chuck Mulloy - Intel's legal affairs spokesman - confirmed that Intel received KFTC's findings from the end of last week but refused to disclose the content or discuss KFTC's allegations. because this is the information that still needs to be kept confidential.

' Intel has full power to resist the ruling, requiring a hearing or bringing the matter to the competent court levels in Korea ,' Mulloy said.

' Intel hopes to show KFTC that the global microprocessor chip market is still operating in accordance with the regulations and it is a fair competitive market. We support competition to bring more practical benefits to consumers '.

South Korea's Yonhap newspaper also yesterday said it was expected that a final decision on sanctions against Intel would be made next month. Representatives from both KFTC and Intel declined to comment on this information.

Hoang Dung