United Kingdom: Closed consultation on scope of CMA market investigation into cloud services

On 9 November 2023, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) closed the consultation on its issues statement outlining the scope of the market investigation into the supply of public cloud infrastructure services. The CMA proposes to examine in its investigation technical barriers impeding customers from switching providers and multi-cloud and leading to customer lock, the role of egress fees as a barrier to switching and multi-cloud and whether they contribute to unpredictable costs and hinder competition, the role of discounts as an entry and expansion barrier for cloud providers, and whether cloud providers practices on software licenses raise barriers to entry in the market and hinder the use of other providers by customers.