The Seoul High Court on Wednesday denied petitions by Qualcomm and Intel to annul fines levied by South Korea's antitrust watchdog for unfair business practices.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) in July 2009 had slapped 273.2 billion won ($241.7 million) in fines, the record amount the commission issued on a single company, against Qualcomm.

The commission said the U.S.-based wireless chipmaker abused its dominant position in the Korean market by demanding discriminatory royalties and giving conditional rebates.

Qualcomm had been taking higher royalties from companies that use products by its competitors while giving more rebates to clients using its own, the FTC said. Qualcomm claimed that the royalties and rebates were in effect price discounts and were carried out under agreements with Korean clients.

South Korea has been a major market for Qualcomm who supplied code division multiple access (CDMA), the most widely used wireless network standard, to mobile handset makers Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. Qualcomm accounted for 99.4 percent of the nation's CDMA modem chip market in 2008.

The court also rejected a petition by Intel Corp., a U.S. computer chipmaker, against FTC's order to pay 26 billion won in fines. Intel was accused of giving rebates to South Korea's computer manufacturers on the condition that they use its central processing unit (CPU) instead of its competitors'. (Yonhap News)