Microsoft Faces £1 Billion UK Lawsuit for Alleged Overcharging Customers on Rival Cloud Platforms

UK Businesses Accuse Tech Giant of Anticompetitive Practices and Overcharging

Dec 03, 2024

Summary

Antitrust lawsuit claims Microsoft used market power to overcharge UK businesses using competitors' cloud services
The lawsuit prompting an "opt-out" collective action and potential compensation, as CMA prepares remedies for anti-competitive practices

A £1 billion lawsuit is filed against Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) in the UK, for overcharging those clients who have been using its rivals like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, and Alibaba Cloud.

The antitrust lawsuit alleges that UK businesses forced to pay more for a license to run Microsoft Windows Server software on competitors' cloud platforms than they did running it on Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft is said to use its powerful position in the market to overcharge customers and simultaneously direct them to its Azure cloud service thus violating competition in the sector.

The £1 billion lawsuit is known as an “opt-out” collective action and all UK businesses that might be affected are automatically included and could get compensation in the event of a Microsoft defeat. Microsoft has not yet issued an opinion about this lawsuit.

Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is drawing up ‘behavioral remedies' to navigate anticompetitive behavior in the cloud sector after a long investigation.

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