Microsoft has been accused of overcharging companies for access to products and are facing a £1 billion legal action after a claim was filed to the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
The legal claim alleges customers who use rival cloud computing platforms instead of Microsoft’s Azure have been billed with higher licensing fees to access the Windows Server, it has been claimed.
British businesses and others are allegedly owed more than £1 billion in compensation after being overcharged.
It has been further alleged that Microsoft used anti-competitive charging practices to force customer to use their cloud services.
As such a legal claim has been filed by the digital markets regulation with policy expert Dr Maria Luisa Stasi and law firm Scott+Scott.
A collective action has been filed by UK businesses that bought licences for Windows Server from the rival cloud platforms, this includes Alibaba Cloud, Google Cloud Platform and Amazon’s AWS.
Dr Stasi said, Put simply, Microsoft is punishing UK businesses and organisations for using Google, Amazon and Alibaba for cloud computing by forcing them to pay more money for Windows Server.
“By doing so, Microsoft is trying to force customers into using its cloud computing service Azure and restricting competition in the sector.
“This lawsuit aims to challenge Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour, push them to reveal exactly how much businesses in the UK have been illegally penalised, and return the money to organisations that have been unfairly overcharged.”
James Hain-Cole, partner at Scott+Scott UK, said, ““Collective actions level the playing field and allow organisations to fight back against anti-competitive behaviour from some of the biggest companies in the world.
“Dr Stasi’s case against Microsoft aims to do exactly that. We are proud to support her efforts to secure compensation for the class and hold Microsoft to account for its conduct that affects businesses and organisations across the UK economy.”
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