Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) is facing a lawsuit exceeding £1 billion ($1.27 billion) for allegedly imposing unfairly high fees on customers of competing cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services (AMZN), Google Cloud (GOOGL), and Alibaba Cloud. The lawsuit claims that customers using Microsoft’s cloud-based Windows Server on competitor platforms are charged significantly more than those using Microsoft's Azure, which offers lower prices to companies operating on its platform.
The legal action is led by Maria Luisa Stasi, a legal and policy head at Article19, representing thousands of affected UK businesses in a collective "opt-out" lawsuit. This ensures all potentially impacted companies are included, and if Microsoft loses, they are eligible for compensation. The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is also investigating anti-competitive practices in the cloud industry.