Google offered complainant €470 million to keep Microsoft antitrust investigation alive: Report

Alphabet’s cloud computing unit Google Cloud has attempted to keep a European Union antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s cloud computing practices alive by offering a package worth €470 million ($511 million) to the complainant, Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE), Bloomberg reports.

The offer included 14 million euros in cash and software licenses worth 455 million euros over five years, Bloomberg reported. It was made to CISPE on the condition that the cloud consortium maintains a complaint against Microsoft alleging abuses in the cloud sector, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter and confidential documents seen by the group.

The news comes just days after CISPE reached a settlement with Microsoft and withdrew its complaint filed in November 2022 with the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust authority.

“Under the Memorandum of Understanding signed by both parties, Microsoft has committed to make certain changes to address the claims raised by CISPE’s European members and, as a result, CISPE will withdraw its complaint against Microsoft,” the cloud consortium said in a statement after the complaint was withdrawn on July 11.

“Amazon Web Services, a CISPE member, has been excluded from these negotiations and, like Google Cloud Platform and AliCloud, will not benefit from or be bound by these terms,” it added.

An email sent to Google seeking confirmation of the details of the €470 million offer remained unanswered.

CISPE, Microsoft and AWS also did not respond to the reporter’s questions.

Microsoft has been in talks with CISPE since February in a bid to avoid a potentially costly European Commission investigation.

Just days after Microsoft said it was trying to resolve the CISPE issue, Google and AWS have launched a protest against Microsoft’s anti-competitive cloud software licensing practices in the EU.

Although Microsoft found relief in the EU, it still faces investigations into anti-competitive practices in the UK and US.

Last December, AWS accused Microsoft of anti-competitive practices in its cloud computing business in a letter to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

AWS’s letter comes after the CMA in October opened an antitrust investigation into Microsoft and Amazon’s cloud services.

The CMA investigation was launched after UK communications regulator Ofcom referred the cloud infrastructure market to the CMA in July to investigate anti-competitive practices in cloud computing following the publication of an interim report.

In the US, the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing has called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate Microsoft’s anti-competitive licensing practices.