Microsoft received a complaint from the European Commission regarding Teams.

The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it notified Microsoft of a preliminary finding that Microsoft violated EU antitrust rules by tying the Teams communications platform to popular productivity apps in the business versions of Office 365 and Microsoft 365.

Vendors of software for business applications are increasingly distributing that software as a service (“SaaS”), meaning software hosted on a cloud infrastructure of the vendor’s choice. The Commission believes that Microsoft has a dominant position worldwide in the market for SaaS productivity applications for professional use.

The Commission is concerned that Microsoft has bundled the Teams platform with basic productivity SaaS applications since at least April 2019, limiting market competition in the communications products market and protecting its position in the productivity software market. If confirmed, these practices would violate Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”), which prohibits the abuse of a dominant position on the market.

The notification sent by the Commission about the established facts does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation. The executive vice-president responsible for market competition policy, Margrethe Vestager, stated that they are concerned that Microsoft may be giving its Teams communication platform an unjustified advantage over its competitors, linking it to popular business productivity packages. Market competition for remote communication and collaboration tools is crucial for driving innovation in these markets. Microsoft will now have the opportunity to answer questions from the Commission.