CISPE files official EC legal complaint against Broadcom’s VMware takeover

Broadcom was given European approval to acquire VMware in July 2023
CISPE’s European Cloud Competition Observatory has issued Broadcom two red warnings
CISPE is now asking the European Commission to annul its decision amid ongoing concerns

The Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) has filed a formal appeal to challenge the European Commission’s decision to approve Broadcom’s 2023 acquisition of VMware.

CISPE – a group representing Europe’s sovereign cloud infrastructure providers, and recently in the news for bringing complaints about Microsoft’s unfair cloud licensing fees – is now seeking annulment of the Commission’s decision.

The news comes around two years after the European Commission approved the takeover, at which point Broadcom promised to deliver continued interoperability.

CISPE isn’t happy about Broadcom’s VMware acquisition

In November 2024, CISPE announced it would be launching the European Cloud Competition Observatory (ECCO) to monitor competition. Later in February 2025, the organization wrote: “In the case of Broadcom, CISPE members and customers report little or no engagement from the company on their issues.”

As such, ECCO assigned a Red/Critical status to Broadcom, which was reconfirmed in May 2025 when ECCO wrote: “This second report finds that Broadcom’s wide ranging and brutal imposition of unfair contract terms for cloud infrastructure service provides continue unabated.”

At that time, ECCO called for “urgent official investigations,” while CISPE Secretary General Francisco Mingorance noted that “Broadcom shows no interest in finding solutions, or even of working with European cloud infrastructure providers.”

“Urgent action is needed,” Mingorance added.

On July 24, 2025, CISPE claimed there had been errors in law and a flawed competitive assessment by the Commission in the first place – although the Commission had acknowledged competitive risks, it had not imposted conditions on Broadcom.

Since the VMware takeover, Broadcom has terminated contracts with short notice periods and introduced new licensing terms with drastic price hikes (up to 10X) and mandatory multi-year commitments.

In this most recent development, Mingorance noted that hospitals, universities and municipal authorities have also been affected – not just cloud service providers.

“The Commission was warned this would happen, yet it stood by. It must now reconsider its decision,” the Secretary General concluded.

TechRadar Pro has asked Broadcom for a response to CISPE’s complaint, but we did not receive an immediate response.