Europe’s cloud providers can keep their names out of Broadcom’s hands while they challenge the deal that put VMware under its control. The EU General Court has ruled that CISPE, the trade association of Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe, may keep confidential the identities of the members backing its action to annul the European Commission’s approval of Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware.
Broadcom had sought the redacted information identifying the supporting members, arguing it needed the names to challenge the admissibility of the case. CISPE argued that the members, which are or have been VMware customers, faced a significant risk of retaliation given Broadcom’s market power, and that they had supplied information about their commercial relationships with VMware. A CISPE spokesperson described the decision as a procedural ruling on confidentiality rather than a judgment on the substance, which removes the immediate obstacle to the action moving forward.
The underlying case argues the Commission erred in clearing the acquisition, which closed in November 2023, without conditions protecting European cloud providers and their customers. CISPE says Broadcom then dismantled the European VMware channel: fewer than 20 European providers remain authorised to offer VMware based services, down from more than a thousand, and those excluded have until March 31, 2027 to sell their infrastructure or customers to a competitor chosen by Broadcom, or to close. CISPE has also filed a separate competition complaint with the Directorate-General for Competition over Broadcom’s post-merger conduct.
CISPE accepts that annulment nearly three years after closing is a long shot, though it points to precedent in the Sony BMG merger, whose 2004 approval was ruled below the required legal standard two years later and then reassessed. Its stated objective is to bring Broadcom to the table to negotiate an end to the practices it calls most egregious. The Commission imposed interoperability conditions on the deal at the time; CISPE’s case is that they did not address the risks to cloud providers.