Microsoft Ready to Fend Off EU Antitrust Action on Teams

(Bloomberg) — The CEO of Microsoft Corp. Brad Smith said the company is willing to offer more concessions to resolve a European Union antitrust investigation into the illegal bundling of the Teams app.

“It is clear that our work is probably not done yet,” Smith told a group of reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. “I expect we will need to take additional steps.”

Smith’s comments come as the European Commission prepares a formal antitrust complaint into Microsoft’s conduct, which could ultimately result in heavy fines.

Read more: Microsoft faces formal EU complaint over Teams Video

Last year, Microsoft proposed spinning off Teams from its broader business software suites and selling it separately to customers at an annual discount, but that move wasn’t enough to reassure regulators. In April, it committed to rolling back the changes globally.

The EU has since been working on a formal complaint about Microsoft’s practice of bundling Teams with Office 365 and Microsoft 365.

The case was sparked by a complaint filed four years ago by Salesforce Inc.’s Slack messaging platform.

— With help from Jillian Deutsch.