The hyperscalers’ maintain on the worldwide, multibillion-pound cloud computing market has come below repeated scrutiny over the previous couple of years from governments, regulators and commerce our bodies.
In broad phrases, the aim of this scrutiny is to establish if the market’s greatest hitters, which embrace Amazon Internet Providers (AWS) and Microsoft, are behaving in anti-competitive methods to develop and defend their market-leading positions.
The place Microsoft’s actions are involved, there’s one specific behaviour the corporate participates in that has been singled out for criticism in lots of of those investigations. That behaviour considerations its extensively criticised apply of charging clients extra for eager to run and host its software program (specifically Home windows Server) in competing cloud environments.
It’s claimed the tactic could make it cost-prohibitive for enterprise cloud customers to run Microsoft’s software program anyplace however on the software program large’s personal public cloud platform Azure, which may probably give it an unfair benefit in relation to constructing its share of the cloud infrastructure market.
As beforehand reported by Laptop Weekly, the UK communications market regulator Ofcom raised a purple flag in regards to the subject in its October 2023 UK cloud market examine, which paved the way in which for a two-year follow-up investigation by the UK Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA), which concluded in July 2025.
The CMA’s 637-page investigative report devoted greater than 170 pages to discussing Microsoft’s cloud licensing habits intimately, and concluded the corporate’s practices are “adversely impacting the competitiveness of AWS and Google [specifically] within the provide of cloud providers” and “decreasing competitors in [the] cloud providers market”.
The CMA additionally acknowledged that Microsoft’s licensing practices, “together with different options we’ve recognized”, are additional limiting the selection and “attractiveness” of different merchandise and suppliers.
Consequently, the CMA advisable that Microsoft be topic to focused and bespoke interventions to treatment the influence the corporate’s behaviour is having on the UK cloud infrastructure providers market as a complete.
On the time of writing, it’s unclear when precisely in 2026 the CMA’s suggestions are more likely to come into impact and what the long-term influence of them can be on Microsoft’s behaviour.
In the meantime, in November 2025, the European Fee launched a separate probe into Microsoft’s maintain on the continent’s cloud market, which is anticipated to culminate in a last report inside 18 months.
Within the meantime, work is underway to safe monetary recourse for UK companies within the type of a burgeoning group authorized motion, which is open to any agency that fears it might have paid extra “at any level since December 2018” to make use of Microsoft’s software program within the AWS, Google or Alibaba public clouds.
Overseeing this effort is Italian competitors lawyer, Maria Luisa Stasi, with the help of advanced disputes decision agency, Scott+Scott. They declare UK corporations affected by Microsoft’s cloud licensing practices could possibly be collectively owed £2bn in compensation.
The primary spherical of courtroom hearings on the difficulty are as a consequence of happen on the UK Competitors Enchantment Tribunal (CAT) on 11 December 2025.
The listening to’s goal is to find out if a collective proceedings order (CPO) for the matter must be granted. This can be a authorized mechanism that enables a collective motion involving a number of claimants with comparable points to band collectively in a single authorized motion in opposition to an entity (on this case, Microsoft) on anti-competition grounds.
If the CAT grants the order, that can certify Stasi’s declare and means her case in opposition to Microsoft can proceed to full trial, placing the companies which have allegedly been left financially deprived by Microsoft’s actions one step nearer to being compensated.
The case itself has been greater than a yr within the making, as information that Stasi had submitted a declare for consideration to CAT first emerged in December 2024, with it being confirmed on the time that this declare would take the type of an “opt-out collective motion”.
This method makes it attainable for sophistication actions, corresponding to Stasi’s case, to proceed in opposition to an organization like Microsoft with no need to get these allegedly affected by its behaviour concerned and onside first.
Over the previous 12 months, Microsoft has been given the possibility to reply to the declare, and – in October 2025 – Stasi issued her first name for companies that suspect they’ve fallen foul of Microsoft’s alleged licensing practices to get in contact and be a part of her group motion.
Forward of the 11 December CAT courtroom date, Laptop Weekly sat down with Stasi to seek out out what it’s about Microsoft’s cloud licensing practices that persuaded her to tackle this combat on behalf of the UK enterprise group.
“Microsoft is dominant on some elements of the [IT infrastructure] stack and is utilizing this energy to impose issues that in any other case can be troublesome to simply accept for enterprise customers, and the fact is that they’ll try this as a result of they restrict selection for individuals,” she says.
“It’s not simply in regards to the [fact its services are] overpriced, it’s additionally about how troublesome it’s for customers to modify and use different suppliers, and the way that limits competitors inside the market.”
She provides: “[The cloud market] is a sector of the economic system that must be very vibrant, revolutionary and open as a result of all of us depend on it, however it’s not. And somebody is making a revenue out of this example, so issues want to vary.”
Stasi makes the purpose that it could be very troublesome for a single enterprise, upset with its remedy by Microsoft, to launch a authorized motion in opposition to the corporate alone and obtain that change.
“[It’s] my mission. to signify all of [the affected users] and attempt to get their a reimbursement, engaged on the idea that collectively, you’re a stronger power”
Maria Luisa Stasi, competitors lawyer
“That’s my mission. I wish to signify all of [the affected users] and attempt to get their a reimbursement on their behalf, engaged on the idea that if you happen to unite collectively, you’re going to be a stronger power to be reckoned with.”
The UK courtroom system is ready up effectively to help this sort of declare, she says, with one of the crucial superior programs in Europe for pursuing this sort of group declare. “It’s additionally thrilling to be a part of shaping this physique of legislation that, to me, is without doubt one of the finest ensures we’ve for the general public curiosity to be revered.”
Momentum for change
Citing the European Fee’s lately launched investigation into Microsoft, and the earlier work performed by Ofcom and the CMA to convey to mild elements of the software program large’s anti-competitive behaviours, Stasi says there’s a actual momentum constructing to get the software program large to vary the way it operates.
Nonetheless, change will take time, she admits. “We hope to see some treatments launched quickly [on the back of the outcome of the CMA’s work], however it’s not a quick course of, and even my proposed class motion just isn’t going to progress rapidly.”
She says: “We went to courtroom a yr in the past, and we’re hoping to have the certification in a few weeks’ time, however that doesn’t imply we’re going to get judgment anytime quickly. But when we get licensed [after 11 December 2025], we will begin working in direction of the trial, and the sport is on.”
Microsoft’s tackle Stasi’s case
Maybe unsurprisingly, Microsoft has not taken the information of Stasi’s authorized motion notably effectively, with a spokesperson for the corporate sharing an announcement with Laptop Weekly that accuses Stasi of attempting to opportunistically capitalise on Google Cloud’s criticism to the European Fee about Microsoft’s licensing practices.
“That is an opportunistic try by a legislation agency and its non-public funders to piggy-back on baseless complaints Google has made and which we’ve all addressed or rebutted,” the Microsoft spokesperson’s assertion reads.
“We allow our cloud opponents to revenue by providing our merchandise to their cloud clients, and our opponents set their very own costs once they do that.”
Stasi dismisses Microsoft’s tackle her authorized motion and the notion that its existence owes something to Google’s (now abortive) try to handle its rival’s cloud licensing technique.
“I’m grateful to my good authorized crew and supportive funders, however the driving power for this case is me. What’s extra, my voice just isn’t alone. UK regulators discovered that Microsoft costs greater costs for utilizing its software program on rival cloud providers,” she says. “The European Fee lately introduced an analogous probe into Microsoft’s cloud providers.”
In response to Laptop Weekly’s questions on how Microsoft has engaged with the authorized course of up to now, she says: “It gained’t shock you that we’ve a very totally different studying of what the influence of its actions are on the category [the businesses involved] and on these sectors of the economic system general.”
She continues: “We’re attempting to do all the pieces we will to resolve all of the various things that may be solved earlier than attending to a possible trial, in order that the latter might be easy and proceed as quick as in all fairness attainable.”
I’d be very stunned if nothing adjustments within the cloud market over the subsequent 5 years. There are political discussions, coverage discussions and enforcement actions coming down the road, so all the pieces appears to be in place for a change to come back Maria Luisa Stasi, competitors lawyer
The trial may also be a chance to handle what Stasi describes as an “asymmetry of data” on this case, which might not be attainable with out getting Microsoft into the courtroom.
“One of many elements coated by this asymmetry of data is what number of purchasers are literally paying what I take into account to be an overcharge [to run Microsoft software in competing clouds],” she says.
“That is one thing I don’t know exactly, however our specialists have been estimating this based mostly on publicly accessible data. The exact quantity is understood to Microsoft, however any such disclosure gained’t occur until we go to trial.”
She provides: “The piece that I’m arguing is that Microsoft’s [behaviour around licensing has] an actual monetary influence on many, many companies and public administrations, which wants addressing.”
With an imminent courtroom date, the CMA’s actions set to take impact in 2026, and the European Fee’s personal investigation into Microsoft now underway, Stasi says she is assured that the cloud market will turn out to be a way more degree enjoying subject within the years to come back.
“I’d be very, very stunned if, in 5 years from now, we’re sitting, having this dialog and nothing has modified,” she says.
“This class motion is likely to be one of many entry factors [for change] and is especially focused on claiming again some further costs, however there’s a lot happening [in the cloud market] with the European Fee investigation and the CMA and the work they’re doing to restructure the market, however that is solely a part of the story.”
She then went on to quote the October 2025 AWS outage within the US, which had far-reaching penalties throughout the globe, as additional proof that having a market so reliant on only a handful of enormous tech corporations is way from best.
“The outages are a robust reminder of what sort of harms and issues we will face as a democracy and as a citizenry, if we carry on having this surroundings so concentrated and so managed in brackets by only a few world gamers,” she says.
“This makes it extraordinarily troublesome to ensure fundamental rules corresponding to observability, transparency, accountability and resilience. I’d be very stunned if nothing adjustments within the cloud market over the subsequent 5 years. There are political discussions, there are coverage discussions, and there are enforcement actions coming down the road, so all the pieces appears to be in place for a change to come back.”
UK corporations desirous about becoming a member of Stasi’s authorized motion can discover out extra about it right here: ukcloudclaim.com/register.
