An undisclosed Microsoft presentation is now central to a multi-million dollar antitrust fight

There’s a new development in a Microsoft antitrust case, originally filed in England’s High Court in April 2021, and it doesn’t look good for the tech giant. A consent order from the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal is demanding documents from past and present Microsoft executives that may have a bearing on a £270 million (about $361 million) lawsuit filed by secondhand software reseller ValueLicensing. The company alleges that Microsoft offered incentives to customers to shift to subscription services without selling their pre-owned licenses. Central to this development is a historic, potentially damning internal “Second-Hand Software” (SHS) presentation, referred to in the consent order as a “known adverse document.” The specific content of the presentation has not yet been made public, but Microsoft has until October 31 to explain why it did not disclose the presentation earlier. Further, a confidentiality designation that previously applied to 11 documents relevant to the case has been lifted. These developments represent “an inflection point in European tech litigation,” said Forrester senior analyst Dario Maisto. “For Amazon (AWS), Google, and Microsoft, the signal is clear: A…

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