The European Commission is investigating whether Broadcom abused its dominant market position following the $61 billion acquisition of VMware in November 2023. Regulators are examining whether changes to licensing and partner programs constitute anti-competitive behavior.
Broadcom discontinued perpetual licenses, transitioning customers to subscription bundles. Users reported price hikes between 800% and 1,500%. Additionally, the company reduced its global VMware Cloud Solution Provider network from over 4,000 partners to 19 in the US and 9 in the UK.
The CISPE trade group filed a formal antitrust complaint in March 2026, seeking regulatory intervention. The European Commission has been gathering information from cloud providers since July 2026, following initial inquiries that began in April 2024.
Broadcom attempted to halt the Commission's information-gathering process, but the General Court rejected this request in April 2026. As of September 2026, the investigation is ongoing, though no interim measures have been imposed on the company.
