Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) has alleged in its challenge before the General Court (GC) that the European Commission (EC) failed to properly assess competition risks when clearing Broadcom Inc.’s $69 billion takeover of VMware.
In July 2023, the EC approved the acquisition of VMware by Broadcom, both US-based, with conditions to address concerns in the worldwide market for the supply of Fibre Channel Host-Bus Adapters (FC HBAs), which are hardware components that connect servers to storage or network.
CISPE, in its challenge lodged in July 2025, is seeking annulment of the EC decision relying on three grounds.
In its filing, CISPE claims the EC committed “manifest errors of assessment” by overlooking potential dominance in the server virtualisation software market, where VMware holds significant power and customers face limited alternatives. The appellant also pointed to Broadcom’s history of “aggressive business practices” and market warnings that anticompetitive effects would emerge post-transaction.
CISPE further alleges the regulator downplayed the risks of bundling VMware’s software with Broadcom’s hardware and other products, failing to provide sufficient reasoning or to distinguish the case from Broadcom’s earlier acquisitions of CA Technologies and Symantec.
The group also argued that the EC neglected to examine the merger’s likely impact on innovation in virtualisation software and related markets, saying it erred by relying on current practices rather than conducting a forward-looking analysis.
The appellant is represented by lawyers Laurent Godfroid, Stéphane Hautbourg, and Marc-Antoine de Chillaz, Rolline Skehan, and Pierce O’Meara of Gide.
The case is T-503/25 CISPE v Commission before the EU General Court.
Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:C_202504901
