Overview
- CISPE filed a complaint asking EU antitrust officials for an interim measure to suspend Broadcom’s termination of the VMware Cloud Service Provider program, restore excluded partners, and safeguard them from retaliation.
- The program was closed in January with a requirement that all transactions be completed by March 31, after which only a small, selected group may sell VMware subscriptions in Europe.
- CISPE alleges post-acquisition changes include price increases of up to tenfold, mandatory bundling, upfront payments, and minimum commitments based on projected rather than actual use.
- Broadcom says it strongly disagrees with CISPE’s claims, characterizes the group as funded by hyperscalers, and asserts it is investing significantly in European VMware cloud partners.
- CISPE previously sued to annul the European Commission’s approval of Broadcom’s VMware deal, and the Commission had not issued a public response to today’s interim request.