Broadcom has escalated its fight with European Union antitrust regulators, filing a lawsuit in the EU General Court in Luxembourg over requests for documents containing legal advice from its U.S. lawyers, according to Reuters. The procedural action centers on the European Commission’s authority to seek privileged legal communications during an ongoing investigation tied to VMware, the software company Broadcom acquired in 2023. Legal professional privilege varies by jurisdiction, and Reuters noted that EU protections generally apply to communications with external counsel but not to exchanges involving in-house lawyers.
The litigation comes amid a broader antitrust investigation triggered by CISPE, a European cloud industry group that counts Amazon and Microsoft as associate members. CISPE filed a formal complaint in March urging EU regulators to impose temporary measures preventing Broadcom from ending VMware’s Cloud Service Provider program in Europe. The group criticized Broadcom’s lawsuit, saying the company “cannot demand complete disclosure from CISPE members affected by its practices while simultaneously maintaining opacity around its own internal communications.” The European Commission said it is prepared to defend its document disclosure decisions in court.
Broadcom said it continues to cooperate with other European Commission information requests but is seeking to protect confidential legal advice. “This filing is a procedural action solely to protect Broadcom’s rights under the long-recognized rules on legal professional privilege in non-EU countries, including the U.S.,” the company said, according to Reuters.
