Microsoft hit with EU antitrust charges over Teams
BRUSSELS : The European Union charged Microsoft with antitrust violations related to the company’s bundling of its Teams collaboration tool with Office 365 and Microsoft 365. The European Commission, the bloc’s antitrust enforcer, said Tuesday it has informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that the company broke antitrust rules by tying Teams to popular productivity offerings that include Microsoft Word and Excel.
The Commission said Microsoft may have given Teams an advantage by not giving customers a choice about whether they would get access to the software when subscribing to other products. Changes that Microsoft made last year to the way it distributes Teams didn’t go far enough to address the competition concerns, the Commission said.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company appreciates the additional clarity it received on Tuesday “and will work to find solutions to address the Commission’s remaining concerns." The EU opened a formal investigation into Microsoft’s bundling of its Teams software last year, after receiving a complaint from business-messaging-app maker Slack Technologies. Slack is now owned by Salesforce.
If the Commission concludes the company breached antitrust rules, Microsoft could face a fine of up to 10% of its global annual revenue. The company will have a chance to argue its case and can propose commitments to address regulators’ concerns and avoid a potential fine.
The charges, which the EU refers to as a statement of objections, are the first to be levied by the bloc against Microsoft in an antitrust case targeting the company’s behavior in more than a decade. Microsoft’s initial battles with antitrust regulators in the 1990s and 2000s were central to the early days of antitrust
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