By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Microsoft respects European laws including landmark legislation seeking to rein in the power of Big Tech, its President Brad Smith said on Wednesday, putting the company at odds with the White House, which has criticised sanctions related to EU rules.
The European Commission triggered the White House’s ire last week after it meted out total fines of 700 million euros ($797 million) to Apple and Meta Platforms for breaching the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, which sets out a list of dos and don’ts for Big Tech.
“We understand that European laws apply to our business practices in Europe, just as local laws apply to local practices in the United States and similar laws apply elsewhere in the world. This includes European competition law and the Digital Markets Act, among others,” Smith said in a blogpost, also delivered in a speech in Brussels.
“We’re committed not only to building digital infrastructure for Europe, but to respecting the role that laws across Europe play in regulating our products and services,” he said.
Microsoft, which racked up 2.2 billion euros in EU antitrust fines two decades ago, is currently seeking to stave off a possible penalty with an offer to adjust its Office-Teams pricing. The European Union investigation is ongoing.
Smith also outlined plans to allay EU concerns about the dominance of U.S. tech giants in cloud computing that have prompted calls from some EU governments to restrict the companies’ role in lucrative government tenders. These concerns have been exacerbated by worries about Europeans’ data privacy.
“In the unlikely event we are ever ordered by any government anywhere in the world to suspend or cease cloud operations in Europe, we are committing that Microsoft will promptly and vigorously contest such a measure using all legal avenues available, including by pursuing litigation in court,” Smith said.
“To further cement the nexus between Microsoft and Europe, going forward our European datacenter operations and their boards will be overseen by a European board of directors that consists exclusively of European nationals and operates under European law,” he said.
He said Microsoft would increase its European data centre capacity by 40% over the next two years and expand its data centre operations in 16 European countries.
“When combined with our recent construction, the plans we’re announcing today will more than double our European datacenter capacity between 2023 and 2027,” Smith said.
($1 = 0.8789 euros)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee. Editing by Jan Harvey and Mark Potter)
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