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An employee walks inside the Intel microprocessor assembly plant, in Heredia, north of San Jose on April 9, 2014. Reuters/Juan Carlos Ulate

(Reuters) - Europe's second-highest court backed on Thursday a record 1.06 billion euros fine levied on U.S. chipmaker Intel by European Union antitrust regulators five years ago for blocking rival Advanced Micro Devices.

"The General Court upholds the fine of 1.06 billion euros imposed on Intel for having abused its dominant position on the market for x86 central processing units between 2002 and 2007," judges wrote in their ruling.

The European Commission in its 2009 decision said Intel tried to thwart AMD by giving rebates to PC makers Dell, Hewlett-Packard Co, Japan's NEC and Lenovo for buying most of their computer chips from Intel.

The EU competition authority said Intel also paid German retail chain Media Saturn Holding to stock only computers with its chips.

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