The European Commission has formally opened an investigation of SAP and its maintenance and support practices for on-premises deployments in Europe.
In a statement, the EC said it has started an investigation into whether SAP "may have distorted competition in the aftermarket for maintenance and support services" for its on-premises ERP applications.
The EC investigation coincides with ongoing SAP lawsuits with Celonis and Teradata.
Specifically, the EC is looking into four areas:
- SAP's requirement that customers seek maintenance and support from the company for on-premises ERP under the same pricing for all software and preventing enterprises from mixing and matching services from other suppliers.
- Preventing customers from terminating maintenance and support for unused software licenses.
- SAP systematically extending the duration of the initial term of on-premises ERP licenses so customers can't terminate maintenance and support.
- SAP charging back-maintenance fees to customers that subscribe to SAP maintenance and support after a period of absence.
For its part, SAP confirmed the investigation and said:
"These proceedings address some areas of our on-premise maintenance and support policies, which are based on long-standing standards that are common across the global software sector. SAP believes that its policies and actions are fully in line with competition rules. However, we take the issues raised seriously and we are working closely with the EU Commission to resolve them.
We do not anticipate the engagement with the European Commission to result in material impacts on our financial performance."
