The European Commission's competition directorate has escalated its scrutiny of Broadcom's licensing changes to VMware software following the company's 61 billion dollar acquisition of VMware, according to questions sent to European cloud providers in July and reported by Bloomberg on September 11, 2026. The questions asked providers to explain how essential VMware based services are to their operations, whether those services could be replaced with alternative tools, and whether Broadcom's new certification arrangements impose unfair restrictions. Regulators also requested data on the size of Europe's public and private cloud markets. The inquiries follow a formal competition complaint filed in March 2026 by CISPE, a trade group representing European cloud infrastructure providers, which argues that Broadcom's closure of the VMware Cloud Service Provider Advantage Partner Program, replaced with an invite only system, would force many European cloud service providers to exit the market. CISPE's complaint also cites Broadcom's elimination of perpetual licenses in favor of subscription bundles, its discontinuation of a white label reseller model, and its removal of migration software that had allowed customers to move away from VMware. The European Commission has not announced whether it will open a formal investigation. Under EU competition law, penalties for a confirmed infringement can reach 10 percent of a company's global annual revenue.