Brussels, 19th March 2026. Today, the Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) filed a competition complaint against Broadcom. This is CISPE’s second complaint filed against a dominant US vendor seeking to use unfair software licensing terms to control the European cloud market. Given the urgency and severity of the situation, CISPE is calling for interim measures to halt Broadcom’s ongoing abuse.
The CISPE complaint, filed with DG Competition today, reacts to the latest actions of Broadcom. In January 2026 Broadcom signalled the termination of its VMware Cloud Service Provider program in Europe. This came on top of price hikes, bundling and demands for up-front payments and minimum commitments based on potential rather than actual usage – which cumulatively have increased costs by more than 1,000 percent. This unilateral decision removed all but a tiny minority of hand selected partners and excluded most European CSPs from selling VMware products. As a result, customers are deprived of access and choice of VMware software, and many vendors are seeing significant proportions of their revenue eliminated overnight.
This latest Broadcom action will force many European CSPs to exit the market. It will also create virtual monopolies in some markets with vendors entirely dependent on Broadcom. Far from building Europe’s Sovereign Cloud, as Broadcom claims it is doing, this action is destroying European strategic autonomy and increasing dominance on overseas providers.
CISPE’s complaint therefore calls for interim measures because of the immediate and irreparable harm caused not only to Europe’s cloud vendors, but an entire ecosystem including partners and the businesses and public sector organisations that rely on VMware virtualisation software. As a minimum, CISPE requests:
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- Immediate suspension of Broadcom’s termination of its VCSP partner program and the readmittance of European cloud service providers allowing them to continue to sell VMware.
- The reintroduction of the ‘white label’ program, axed by Broadcom in 2025, which previously allowed SME and smaller cloud providers to offer VMware software as part of their cloud solutions.
- Finally, CISPE believes that explicit protections against retaliation from Broadcom are required as part of these interim measures and that a system of fines be enforced to ensure compliance with these terms.
CISPE is not alone in raising these concerns. Its complaint supports that of Voice e.V, which represents many of the largest IT customers in Germany, filed in May 2025. It also echoes the concerns of many associations and individual businesses across the continent – many of whom are so dependent on Broadcom’s VMware software that they fear direct retaliation. This is the bully’s charter – comply with our terms or face the consequences.
Commenting on the complaint, CISPE secretary general, Francisco Mingorance, said: “With the termination of the Broadcom program allowing access to VMware virtualisation software, businesses – both cloud providers and their customers – are being irreparably damaged by Broadcom’s unfair actions, which we believe are illegal. After imposing outrageous and unjustified price hikes immediately following the acquisition of VMware, Broadcom is now applying the ‘coup de grâce’. We need urgent intervention to force them to change. The only way to stop bullies is to stand up to them.”
“In 2024, within just a few weeks, VMware changed its prices, licensing model, ordering processes, and more—without providing customers with the necessary information or sufficient time to adapt. To this day, our members continue to contact us about the difficulties they face. The announced shake‑up of the previously well‑functioning ecosystem between VMware partners and end users has only added to the challenges and uncertainty,” Danielle Jacobs, CEO Beltug, the Belgian Association of CIOs & Digital Technology Leaders.
Simon Besteman, Director Public Affairs Dutch Cloud Community, added: “Broadcom’s actions in the past years have had a devastating effect on the market. Customers have seen their costs rise exponentially; providers have been sabotaged and found themselves unable to fulfil their commitments to users, dissent or protest has led to threats, retaliation and ostracism. We urge the commission to take actions to restore fair market conditions for all participants.”
“Our members have never experienced anything like this: Broadcom’s conduct falls far outside the range of reasonable risk considerations that have been the industry standard for many years.” said Finn Vagner, CEO, Danish Cloud Community. “In the short term, it places our affected members in an extremely critical and high-pressure situation and impacts a large number of customers. In the long term, it may impose unnecessary costs on the entire industry and its customers. We therefore urge the European Commission to intervene and set a precedent.”
To learn more about CISPE’s action, and to pledge support for this campaign, please visit https://dontbebullied.cispe.cloud