Microsoft may face EU antitrust investigation into Teams

The European Commission plans to launch a formal antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s video calling service Teams. At least that is what Politico says based on several sources.

Politico bases focuses on four sources that are said to be familiar with this matter. The investigation would examine whether and, if so, to what extent Microsoft unfairly links the Teams service and other software to the use of Office. A spokesperson for the Commission indicated that an ‘assessment of the complaint’ is still ongoing.

The European Commission, the EU’s competition regulator, is said to be planning to quickly scale up the investigation and is preparing a statement of objections. This document has also recently been sent to several of Microsoft’s competitors in which the Commission indicates what evidence it intends to use. A statement of objections is a document in which the Commission must indicate which facts it bases itself on and how it assesses them. The aim is to inform one or more parties involved about the objections, so that the parties can relate to them and possibly defend themselves against them. It should also state which infringements the Commission found and what evidence played a role in them.

This issue surrounding Teams started when Slack filed an official complaint in 2020. In it, the company indicated that Microsoft had too much power and was actually abusing its dominant position. According to Slack, Microsoft uses its dominant position to thwart competitors, in the sense that Teams is linked to the market-dominant Office by default. Reuters wrote late last year that Microsoft was working to address the European Commission’s concerns; Microsoft is said to have then proposed to make certain concessions. Slack was acquired by Salesforce at the end of 2020.