Brussels, November 14, 2025 — The European Commission (EC) has invited comments on commitments offered by SAP to address concerns over practices in the provision of maintenance and support services for its on-premises ERP software.
The authority opened its investigation on September 25 and preliminarily found SAP to be dominant in the market for maintenance and support services for on-premises ERP systems.
According to the agency, SAP’s conduct may have restricted rivals and limited customers’ ability to choose alternative service providers. The concerns relate to requirements to use SAP support across all ERP products, limits on terminating support for unused licences, extensions of initial licence terms, and the charging of reinstatement and back-maintenance fees that could replicate past costs.
Key remedies offered by SAP
SAP proposed a set of commitments to address the EC’s concerns, including:
- Allowing customers to split their SAP systems into separate parts and choose different service providers or support levels for each part, including opting out of SAP support.
- Expanding access to single-metric contracts and allowing customers to place unused licences in a separate system part and end SAP support for that portion.
- Clarifying contractual rules on initial licence terms and ending the practice of restarting the term with each additional licence purchase.
- Abolishing reinstatement fees and reducing back-maintenance fees to 50 percent of what a customer would have paid if it had remained on support, capped at six months of fees. SAP will fully waive such fees for certain unsupported products.
If accepted, the commitments would apply worldwide for 10 years and be overseen by a monitoring trustee.
The EC has opened a one-month consultation period for interested parties to submit views on SAP’s proposals. The full commitments will be published in the Official Journal and made available through the Commission’s case register under AT.40823.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_2683
