EU antitrust regulators hit US chipmaker Qualcomm with $1.23 billion fine on Wednesday for paying Apple to only use Qualcomm chips, rather than those made by rivals such as Intel.

The European Commission said its investigation, launched in 2015, covered the period from 2011 to 2016 and took into account Qualcomm’s market dominance in LTE baseband chipsets, which enable rapid mobile broadband connections.

“Qualcomm paid billions of US dollars to a key customer, Apple, so that it would not buy from rivals. These payments were not just reductions in price — they were made on the condition that Apple would exclusively use Qualcomm’s baseband chipsets in all its iPhones and iPads,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

“This meant that no rival could effectively challenge Qualcomm in this market, no matter how good their products were,” she said.

The fine represented 4.9 percent of Qualcomm’s 2017 turnover, the commission said.

Qualcomm shares were slightly down in early trading.

Vestager told a news conference there would be no repercussions for Apple in the case.