Google’s cunning plan involved offering an alternative deal worth a staggering $500 million to the Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE), the group behind the EU complaint. However, there was a catch: CISPE had to maintain its EU antitrust complaint against Vole.

This high-stakes manoeuvre occurred just days before CISPE ultimately settled with Microsoft. Despite Google’s substantial offer—comprising over five years of software licenses and around £15 million in cash—CISPE chose to ink a deal with the software giant. TechCrunch noted that this agreement forced CISPE to accept several compromises.

CISPE initially filed its complaint in 2022, accusing Microsoft of “irreparably damaging the European cloud ecosystem” and limiting European customers’ choices by inflating costs for running Microsoft software on rival cloud services.

In February, CISPE emphasised that any remedies and resolutions should apply universally across the sector and be accessible to all European cloud customers. They even pledged to make any agreements public.

However, last week's settlement excluded major rivals—such as Amazon (a CISPE member) and Google (not part of CISPE). Curiously, the terms of the deal remained undisclosed, except for a brief CISPE blog post outlining features that supposedly addressed the group’s concerns about Microsoft’s alleged anticompetitive practices.

The CISPE agreed to drop their complaint, but the exact “lump sum” Microsoft paid to cover CISPE’s legal fees over three years remains a mystery. Reuters reported that “two people with direct knowledge of the matter” estimated the payment to be around £22 million.