The General Superintendence of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade) opened proceedings against Microsoft to investigate violations of the economic order related to the North American company’s operations in the corporate software and cloud computing markets, according to an order this Friday.
When contacted by Reuters, Microsoft in Brazil did not respond immediately.
Cade’s decision follows a recommendation from the antitrust body’s technical area, based on a report from the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), published in July last year, which identified adverse effects on competition resulting from Microsoft’s software licensing policies in that country.
“In a strict summary, the CMA concluded that the licensing practices adopted by Microsoft have produced relevant negative effects on the competitive capacity of its rivals, mainly AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Google, to offer cloud computing services, especially in the segment of customers whose ‘workloads’ depend on Microsoft software as an ‘essential input’”, states the technical note.
Cade’s note states that “the possibility of the same reality occurring in Brazil must be investigated”.
Valor Econômico published a report earlier about Cade’s decision.
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