26 Jun Another EU Antitrust Action Against Microsoft: A New Chapter in a Longstanding Saga
On June 26, 2024, the European Commission issued a Statement of Objections to Microsoft, indicating its preliminary view that the tech giant has violated EU antitrust laws by tying MS Teams, its communication, collaboration, and conferencing platform, to its popular productivity and corporate software suites, Office 365 and Microsoft 365. This move marks the latest development in the EU’s ongoing scrutiny of Microsoft’s market practices, particularly concerning its software bundling strategies, one which has ongoing for the better part of two decades.
The Commission notes that Microsoft’s bundling of Teams with its core SaaS (Software as a Service) productivity applications limits consumer choice and stifles competition. The integration of Teams within Microsoft’s widely used productivity suites ostensibly provides it an unfair distribution advantage over competitors, who provide individual software solutions. This practice, the Commission argues, restricts competition and innovation in the market for communication and collaboration tools, potentially violating Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which prohibits the abuse of a dominant market position.