Part of Microsoft’s settlement with a bunch of cloud providers in Europe to make an antitrust complaint disappear is a two-year moratorium on software audits, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Analysts have been wondering what else was lurking in the resolution that CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe) signed with Microsoft last week, and two people with knowledge of the matter have said that members would enjoy a 24-month pause on software audits by the Windows giant.

This is in addition to a payment made by Microsoft to the trade group of cloud companies, which is estimated to range from €10 million to €30 million, along with some technical concessions.

One of the major goals of the settlement from CISPE’s perspective was the removal of price differentials between running Microsoft’s software on Azure versus running it on a European Cloud Provider’s infrastructure, as alleged in the complaint CISPE filed with the European Commission in November 2022.

However, while Microsoft has promised a version of Azure Stack HCI for Hosters, it would be reasonable to expect that the software giant would be keen to run the odd license audit to check for compliance.

Except it isn’t. CISPE members are to receive two years off the audit treadmill, insiders say.

One source cited the protection from audits as evidence of Microsoft’s market power – effectively backing EU cloud providers into a corner with an “or else.” The moratorium – as another source described it – was attractive.

A temporary halt on audits makes the settlement more appealing, avoiding a knock on the door by Microsoft’s software licensing compliance cops. It will also make its exclusion all the more galling for AWS and Google, which have repeatedly blasted Microsoft over licensing terms that make it costlier to run some of its popular software anywhere but Azure.

Microsoft’s main rival in the EU public cloud marketplace is AWS. The most recent set of figures from Statista had the duo, along with Google’s considerably lower share of customer spending, as accounting for more half of the market.

The settlement with CISPE does not involve AWS or Google, both of which are termed by Microsoft as listed providers, meaning their customers will continue to pay more to licence Microsoft wares in their clouds.

So, anyone still wondering why CISPE members would select Microsoft’s offer over Google’s, which appeared more generous, now has another factor to consider.