{"id":506274,"date":"2026-04-01T01:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/506274\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T01:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:53:13","slug":"the-uks-antitrust-regulator-is-looking-into-microsofts-possible-monopoly-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/506274\/","title":{"rendered":"The UK&#8217;s antitrust regulator is looking into Microsoft&#8217;s possible monopoly power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The UK&#8217;s Competition and Markets Authority is once more turning its lens on Microsoft. The tech company will be the focus of an <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/cma-announces-package-of-actions-on-business-software-and-cloud-services\" data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:investigation;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;investigation&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\">investigation<\/a> by the regulator to see if it can be assigned strategic market status (SMS). The CMA already has &#8220;a major concern&#8221; with Microsoft&#8217;s alleged limiting of competition in the cloud space via productivity software like Word and Excel, chat app Teams, AI companion Copilot and even Windows itself. The SMS designation &#8220;would allow the CMA to act&#8221; against the company. The investigation will begin in May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">In addition, the UK regulator is also following up on an <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/big-tech\/uk-seeks-greater-regulatory-power-over-microsoft-and-amazon-web-services-cloud-computing-services-155757650.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:inquiry;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;2&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;inquiry&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">inquiry<\/a> into Microsoft and Amazon from 2025, where it sought to exert more control over the domestic cloud services market. As a result of that action, the CMA said Amazon and Microsoft have agreed to a plan involving egress fees and interoperability around cloud services. &#8220;These changes will reduce expense and effort for UK customers when using more than one cloud provider,&#8221; the CMA bulletin states.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The CMA has frequently had Microsoft in its sights. The company sparked an investigation in 2023 for its <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/the-uks-competition-regulator-is-reviewing-microsofts-links-to-openai-115248453.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:3;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:relationship with OpenAI;cpos:3;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;3&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;relationship with OpenAI&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">relationship with OpenAI<\/a> and in 2024 for its actions <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/uk-antitrust-officials-join-ftc-in-investigating-microsofts-hiring-of-inflection-ai-staff-143243701.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:4;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:hiring staff from Inflection AI;cpos:4;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;4&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;hiring staff from Inflection AI&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hiring staff from Inflection AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK&#8217;s Competition and Markets Authority is once more turning its lens on Microsoft. The tech company will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,11964,59,696,5652,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-506274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-competition-and-markets-authority","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-microsoft","12":"tag-the-uk","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}