Software reseller suing Microsoft for £270 million over 'anticompetitive' actions

Microsoft is getting sued past United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland-based software reseller ValueLicensing. The lawsuit alleges that Microsoft is using "anticompetitive" practices to get companies to give upwardly licenses in exchange for discounts rather than selling the licenses to companies similar ValueLicensing (via Forbes).

ValueLicensing is a certified provider of pre-owned Microsoft software licenses. ValueLicensing's website fifty-fifty has a Microsoft Partner Network icon on its well-nigh page. The company sells pre-endemic Microsoft volume licenses and has operated since 2009.

The business organisation model of ValueLicensing includes purchasing licenses from businesses that don't need them anymore and then reselling them. ValueLicensing claims that it has been injure by "anticompetitive" practices by Microsoft. Specifically, it claims that it has been financially injure by Microsoft pushing companies to give upwardly licenses in substitution for discounts rather than selling them to ValueLicensing or similar companies.

"Microsoft's illegal behaviour has impacted almost every organisation that provides desktop software for its workforce in the UK and the EEA," said Jonathan Horley, managing manager at ValueLicensing to the Financial Times.

Horley also claims that his visitor isn't the merely ane hurt past Microsoft:

ValueLicensing is not the but victim. In purchasing software, public and individual-sector organisations presently have trivial option but to move to subscriptions offered by Microsoft, because there are then few preowned perpetual licenses bachelor now, as a result of Microsoft'southward campaign to almost entirely drain the market.

ValueLicensing'due south lawsuit was filed with the Loftier Court in London. In addition to seeking for NDAs to be removed from contracts and Microsoft stopping its activities, ValueLicensing asks the court to "award damages for the loss it has suffered as a result of Microsoft's bear." According to ValueLicensing, these losses are valued at an estimated gross profit of £270 million.

The Financial Times reached out to Microsoft for comment just was told that Microsoft cannot annotate on ongoing legal cases.

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