2 months ago
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Japanese authorities raided Microsoft’s Tokyo offices Wednesday, investigating whether the company improperly blocked Azure cloud customers from using competing services.
Japan’s Fair Trade Commission carried out the raid based on suspicions that Microsoft Japan imposed conditions that locked out rival cloud providers by restricting access to popular services on other platforms, a source with direct knowledge told Reuters.
A Microsoft Japan spokesperson said the company is “fully cooperating with the JFTC in their requests.” Japanese regulators also plan to seek clarification from Microsoft’s parent company in the United States.
This marks the first time Japan’s antitrust watchdog has raided Microsoft, though the company faces similar problems across multiple continents.
In Britain, competition lawyer Maria Luisa Stasi filed a 2.1 billion-pound lawsuit on December 11, 2025, claiming Microsoft overcharged nearly 60,000 British businesses that use Windows Server software on cloud platforms run by Amazon, Google and Alibaba.
Her legal team told London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal that Microsoft charges higher prices to businesses that don’t use Azure.
Lawyer Sarah Ford said Microsoft “degrades the user experience of Windows Server” on rival platforms as part of “a coherent abusive strategy to leverage Microsoft’s dominant position” in the cloud market.
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority found in July that Microsoft’s licensing practices hurt competition for cloud services “by materially disadvantaging AWS and Google.”
Google complained to the European Commission in September that Microsoft forces customers to pay a 400% markup to keep running Windows Server on competing cloud platforms while giving them delayed and limited security updates.
Brazil opens investigation following UK findings
Brazil’s competition authority opened its own investigation in January into Microsoft’s cloud and software licensing. The Council for Economic Defense pointed to findings from the UK, saying Microsoft’s global licensing policies likely create the same problems in Brazil.
Microsoft runs two cloud regions in Brazil and announced a $2.7 billion investment plan in September 2024 to expand its cloud infrastructure there.
These investigations are among the biggest regulatory challenges Microsoft has faced since the 1990s, when it fought antitrust charges over web browser dominance. Microsoft has pushed back, saying its business model helps competition and that “the cloud market has never been so dynamic and competitive.”
The Federal Trade Commission opened a broad antitrust investigation into Microsoft in November 2024. The probe looks at claims that Microsoft abuses its market power by using punitive licensing terms that stop customers from moving their data from Azure to other platforms.
Industry groups criticize ‘extraordinary’ market power
NetChoice, a lobbying group that represents online companies including Amazon and Google, criticized Microsoft’s approach.
“Given that Microsoft is the world’s largest software company, dominating in productivity and operating systems software, the scale and consequences of its licensing decisions are extraordinary,” the group said.
Microsoft now faces investigations by regulators on four continents, all looking at whether it uses its dominance in operating systems and productivity software to push customers toward Azure while punishing those who pick competing cloud services.
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