A trade association of cloud service providers (CSPs) filed an antitrust complaint today with the European Union’s European Commission (EC) over Broadcom’s shuttering of VMware’s CSP partner program this year.
Since Broadcom bought VMware, it has drastically cut the number of channel partners VMware works with, a shift that began with the elimination of VMware’s partner program. Broadcom replaced the program with an invite-only alternative that favors larger partners working with enterprise-sized clients rather than small-to-medium-sized businesses.
There are even fewer CSP partners working with VMware today. Broadcom introduced a requirement that CSP partners operate at least 3,500 cores, rendering hundreds of CSPs ineligible for partnership. Before Broadcom bought VMware, the virtualization company had over 4,000 CSP partners, per a February 2024 report from The Register. Today, VMware reportedly has 19 CSP partners in the US and about nine in the United Kingdom, The Register reported.
In January, Broadcom terminated VMware’s CSP program in Europe, prompting the antitrust complaint CISPE filed today. The complaint asks the EC to stop Broadcom from killing the program, which is still honoring transactions until March 31. CISE is urging the EC to impose an interim measure requiring Broadcom to reopen the CSP partner program, reinstate displaced partners, and prevent Broadcom from retaliating against them.
“In January 2026 Broadcom signaled the termination of its VMware Cloud Service Provider program in Europe,” CIPSE said in a statement. This unilateral decision removed all but a tiny minority of hand-selected partners and excluded most European CSPs from selling VMware products.”
In its complaint, CISPE also accused Broadcom of “ongoing abuse,” citing sharp price hikes—up to tenfold, with some customers reporting as much as 900 percent increases—along with product bundling and commitment requirements based on projected rather than actual use, The Register reported.
“After imposing outrageous and unjustified price hikes immediately following the acquisition of VMware, Broadcom is now applying the ‘coup de grâce.’ We need urgent intervention to force them to change,” CISPE Secretary General Francisco Mingorance said, according to the publication.
In a statement responding to CISPE’s antitrust complaint, Broadcom said:
Broadcom strongly disagrees with the allegations by CISPE, an organization funded by hyperscalers, which misrepresent the realities of the market. We continue to be committed to investing significantly in our European VMware Cloud Service Provider partners… helping them offer alternatives to the hyperscalers and meet the evolving needs of European businesses and organizations.
CISPE currently has 50 members. It also names hyperscalers Amazon Web Services and Microsoft as “adherent members,” which CISPE claims don’t have voting rights and are prohibited from participating in certain activities.
In July, CISPE filed an appeal with the European General Court in an attempt to annul the EC’s approval of Broadcom’s VMware acquisition. That case is ongoing.
