Antitrust complaint: Microsoft allegedly tried to appease rivals with money
Microsoft has offered its competitors money due to an antitrust complaint at EU level.
(Image: Shutterstock.com/Dmitry Demidovich)
Microsoft is said to have tried to appease complainants in an EU antitrust complaint with money. This emerges from an interview with Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek, which appeared in the Swiss net politics magazine Dnip. According to Karlitschek, the background to this is an antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft with the EU Commission in 2021. Microsoft then tried to persuade him and others involved in the complaint to withdraw the complaint by offering money.
"There are companies that have received financial offers in connection with their participation in competition proceedings. This underlines why effective regulatory oversight is so important – to ensure fair market conditions and enable competition based on innovation rather than market dominance," said Karlitschek when asked by heise online. When asked, Microsoft stated that it did not wish to comment on the allegations. The Free Software Foundation Europe has also received an offer, but has not yet responded to a request for comment.
"Nobody has accepted money"
In addition, the companies have also been offered money "to stop supporting Nextcloud", Karlitschek told Dnip. However, none of them responded. It all started more than three years ago, "when we wanted to tackle the problematic bundling of services and software. We initially focused on the OneDrive case to make the problem more tangible," explained Karlitschek.
Windows, Office packages and more
At the end of September 2024, following a complaint from Nextcloud and others, the German Federal Cartel Office had already established Microsoft's "cross-market significance" and that the US company was exploiting its power to sell packaged solutions. "The company's historical starting point is the Windows operating system, with which Microsoft has held a dominant position for many years. In addition, there are the Office applications and other software offerings that are interconnected in many ways," said Andreas Mundt, President of the German Federal Cartel Office, summarizing the situation at the time.
Payment to CISPE
In the summer of 2024, Microsoft paid 20 million euros to settle disputes with the cloud industry association CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe). The dispute concerned the licensing of Microsoft's cloud products, which would damage the European cloud computing market. After Microsoft then promised changes to the licensing conditions and compensated the CISPE members, the complaint was settled. However, CISPE members said that the agreement would only bring short-term benefits, while the cloud industry and its customers would pay the price in the long term.
Microsoft under scrutiny
Microsoft is under scrutiny for these and similar reasons, including from the US Trade Commission (FTC). The reason for this is cooperation between big tech companies such as Microsoft and leading AI companies. Microsoft recently invested billions in OpenAI. The FTC sees this as an increased risk that OpenAI could be completely taken over in the near future. It is unclear what the future holds for big tech regulation.
US President Trump recently published a memorandum threatening countermeasures if services provided by US digital companies abroad are taxed or otherwise regulated. "We are at a critical time for the European economy and society. We are faced with a choice: do we want to be blackmailed or finally become digitally sovereign? The new government is called upon to urgently promote European independence," Karlitschek demands.
(mack)
