Overview
- Britain’s Competition Appeal Tribunal, which certified the case Tuesday, approved an opt-out Collective Proceedings Order that moves the claim toward trial.
- About 59,000 businesses say they were overcharged to run Windows Server on rival clouds such as AWS, Google Cloud and Alibaba because Microsoft priced its own Azure use lower.
- Reports put potential compensation between £1.7 billion and £2.1 billion, with the final sum hinging on how the court measures any losses.
- The claim targets two practices: higher wholesale prices under Microsoft’s Service Provider License Agreement and an Azure Hybrid Benefit that lets on‑premise licenses move to Azure but not to competing clouds on the same terms.
- Microsoft says it will appeal the certification and disputes the allegations, while a written order setting the opt‑out deadline is expected within weeks and UK regulators are reopening a probe into its cloud licensing.