Microsoft will pay off a cloud industry group to end an EU antitrust complaint, Politico reports

:Microsoft is close to striking a multimillion-dollar deal with the Amazon-backed cloud lobby to get it to drop its antitrust complaint to the European Commission, Politico reported on Saturday.

The report said the deal, which has not yet been approved by members of lobbying group Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE), means providers will withdraw their request for an investigation into Microsoft’s cloud computing licensing deals, citing industry officials knowledgeable propositions.

According to the report, the pact would include a possible multi-million-dollar payment to the industry association, with separate payments to individual companies also possible.

Microsoft, Amazon, CISPE and the European Commission did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours.

CISPE, whose members include Amazon and 26 small EU cloud providers, filed the complaint in late 2022, maintaining that Microsoft’s new contract terms imposed on October 1 harm the European cloud computing ecosystem.

As part of any settlement, CISPE and its members will also agree not to file legal complaints against Microsoft in any country in the world, according to the report.

In February, Reuters was first to report that Microsoft was in talks with CISPE to resolve a European Union antitrust complaint over the software giant’s cloud licensing practices.