British Industry Group Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Microsoft, Accusing Favoritism Towards Its Own Cloud Business
Brook.X
Following investigations in the EU and the US, Microsoft's cloud computing business has now triggered an antitrust inquiry in the UK. However, at this stage, it is an industry organization in the UK filing the lawsuit against Microsoft, rather than the UK's antitrust regulatory bodies taking proactive investigative action.
Related to this, the UK's antitrust regulators are investigating Microsoft's cloud business based on clues provided by the British telecom operator Ofcom. Currently, this investigation is still in the preliminary phase and has not escalated to a formal antitrust lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed by Dr. Maria Luisa Stasi, a specialist in UK competition law and digital market regulation, representing thousands of British businesses and organizations.
The funding for the lawsuit is provided by LCM, an international dispute finance provider . According to the financing agreement with LCM, Dr. Stasi will bear all litigation costs, including risks, although initial funding is provided by LCM.
The focus of the antitrust lawsuit is on the significant cost difference for enterprises using the Windows Server operating system on cloud computing platforms like Amazon AWS, AlibabaCloud, and Google Cloud, compared to using Windows Server on Microsoft Azure.
The crux of the issue is Microsoft's bundling of its Windows Server operating system with Azure cloud computing services, offering a cheaper licensing fee for using Azure+Windows Server together.
Previously, Microsoft settled a few antitrust complaints from European cloud computing providers in the EU by paying €20 million, leading to similar antitrust lawsuits in the UK demanding investigations into Microsoft and compensation.
The lawsuit has been granted class action status, meaning all UK customers using Microsoft Azure will automatically be part of the lawsuit unless they choose to opt out.
If the lawsuit is successful, all participating customers could potentially receive compensation from the settlement, which is currently undetermined but is being sought at £1 billion, approximately $1.25 billion.
