CISPE, the European cloud infrastructure service provider organization, has formally submitted an antitrust complaint to the European Commission, accusing Broadcom of seriously harming the interests of European cloud service providers and customers by significantly increasing prices, terminating cooperation projects, and tightening authorization policies after acquiring VMware, and requested regulatory agencies to take temporary measures for emergency intervention. The European Commission confirmed that it has received the complaint and is evaluating whether to initiate an investigation in accordance with established procedures.
CISPE said in a statement that since the completion of the US$69 billion acquisition of VMware in 2023, Broadcom has increased the price of related software subscriptions by "up to 1,000%" and forcibly packaged and sold multiple products. At the same time, customers are required to pay in advance and set minimum commitments based on "potential usage" rather than "actual usage", significantly pushing up the costs of small and medium-sized cloud service providers. On this basis, Broadcom announced in January 2026 that it would terminate the VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) partner program in Europe, leaving only a very small number of "hand-selected" partners, resulting in the vast majority of European cloud service providers being excluded from VMware authorization channels.
According to the complaint, the suspension of the VCSP project means that hundreds of European service providers that originally relied on VMware virtualization stack for hosting and cloud operations will face a "de facto death sentence": either transfer customers to a handful of large vendors that are still authorized, or invest in costly migration to other virtualization platforms. CISPE warns that this will not only weaken the competitiveness of local manufacturers, but may also form a "de facto monopoly" that is highly dependent on a single supplier in some countries, running counter to the EU's policy goals of promoting "digital sovereignty" and a diverse cloud ecosystem.
In its appeal to the European Commission, CISPE requested urgent interim measures, including: immediately suspending Broadcom's decision to terminate the VCSP program in Europe; resuming the previous project that allowed small and medium-sized cloud providers to integrate and resell VMware software in a "white label" manner; and setting up clear "anti-retaliation" protection and fine mechanisms to prevent Broadcom from retaliating against complaining members or customers who continue to deal with non-preferred partners. The organization pointed out that if it does not intervene immediately, it will cause "irreparable" long-term damage to the entire European cloud ecosystem.
Broadcom "strongly objects" to the accusations in a statement, calling CISPE "an organization funded by hyperscale cloud vendors" and its accusations "distorting market reality." The company said it continues to "continue to invest heavily in VMware cloud partners" in Europe to help them provide local businesses and organizations with alternatives to the very large cloud players. At the level of public opinion, some European cloud service providers have accused Broadcom of using VMware authorization to reconstruct the market structure, compressing the space of small and medium-sized partners through "forced integration", and exchanging a more centralized and closed ecosystem for higher profits and stronger control.