European cloud providers (CISPE) challenge the Broadcom-VMware approval

2025-07-24 · Publisher : CISPE · Domain : Cloud & DevOps

On 24 July 2025, CISPE, which federates European cloud providers, asks the EU General Court to annul the approval of Broadcom's acquisition of VMware. It denounces price rises sometimes exceeding tenfold.

### Background On 24 July 2025, the association CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe) announces it has lodged with the General Court of the European Union an action to annul the Commission's decision approving Broadcom's acquisition of VMware. CISPE argues that the Commission acknowledged significant competition risks without imposing conditions on Broadcom to prevent abuse of a dominant position. ### Key facts - Complaints against Broadcom: unilateral contract terminations on minimal notice, licence price rises sometimes exceeding tenfold, mandatory multi-year commitments. - Broadcom also announced restrictive terms that could exclude European providers from reselling VMware-based services. - The action alleges errors of law and manifest failures in the Commission's assessment. - Francisco Mingorance, CISPE's secretary general, states in essence that VMware's dominance of virtualization means these terms affect almost every European organization using cloud technology. ### Why it matters With VMware the hypervisor of most enterprise and hosting datacenters, Broadcom's licensing terms directly weigh on CIOs' costs and freedom of choice. CISPE's action gives a regulatory and European dimension to a hitherto commercial subject. For consulting firms, it reinforces the case for preparing exit or diversification scenarios without waiting for the court outcome, which will be long. ### Takeaway A European action against an acquisition already completed, embodying the tension between cloud providers and the virtualization vendor.

Tags : Europe, Licence, Cloud, Souveraineté