Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
The European Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Microsoft breached EU competition rules by linking or bundling its communication and collaboration product teams into its popular Office 365 and Microsoft 365 business suites.
According to a statement issued by the European Commission headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, Microsoft Teams, a cloud-based communication and collaboration tool, is included in its well-established cloud-based productivity suites for business clients Office 365 and Microsoft 365. The Commission is concerned that Microsoft may abuse its market position in and defend productivity programs by restricting competition in the European Economic Area ("EEA") for communication and collaboration products.

In particular, the Commission is concerned that Microsoft may give Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers a choice about whether or not to include access to this product when subscribing to their productivity suites and may have limited interoperability between productivity suites and competing offerings. .

Such practices may constitute anti-competitive restraint or bundling and prevent suppliers of other communication and collaboration tools from competing, to the detriment of customers in the European Economic Area (“EEA”).

If proven, the conduct under investigation could breach EU competition rules, which prohibit the abuse of a dominant position (Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ("TFEU"). The commission will conduct its in-depth investigation as a matter of priority. Opening an official investigation does not affect its results.

Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, responsible for competition policy, said: “Remote communication and collaboration tools such as Teams are becoming indispensable for many companies in Europe. We must therefore ensure that markets for these products remain competitive, and that companies are free to choose products that meet their needs. That's why we're investigating whether Microsoft linking its productivity suites with Teams might breach EU competition rules."