A search for pair-produced charged Higgs bosons is performed with the L3 de
tector at LEP using data collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 188.6 GeV,
corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 176.4 pb(-1). Higgs decays in
to a charm and a strange quark or into a tau lepton and its associated neut
rino are considered. The observed events are consistent with the expectatio
ns from Standard Model background processes. A lower limit of 65.5 GeV on t
he charged Higgs mass is derived at 95% confidence level, independent of th
e decay branching ratio Br(H+/- --> tau nu). (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier
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