The legal spat between secondhand software reseller ValueLicensing and Microsoft took another turn this week: a consent order was published with demands for documents from past and present Microsoft head honchos, and a planned case management conference was cancelled.

Several requests in the order revolved around a historic, potentially explosive internal document written by Microsoft entitled the “Second-Hand Software” (SHS) Presentation.

ValueLicensing and Microsoft agreed to vacate the case management conference ahead of its scheduled date on September 14, 2026. The result is the Consent Order, which, unsurprisingly, focuses on locating and asking for the disclosure of Microsoft documents that may bear on the reseller’s allegation that the company offered incentives for customers to shift to subscription services in return for not selling their pre-owned licenses.

The confidentiality designation applied to several documents in the case has also been lifted.

In addition, there are many references to a June 2013 document that Microsoft disclosed on December 22, 2025, entitled “Second-Hand Software Presentation” (SHS Presentation).

June 2013 was a busy time for Microsoft: it had launched the Office 365 subscription service two years previously, but there was a question over what to do about those customers with perpetual licenses that Microsoft wanted to move into the brave new world of “an always-up-to-date cloud service, at a predictable monthly subscription.”

While the content of the SHS Presentation has yet to be made public, the Consent Order treats it as a “Known Adverse Document,” meaning it is unlikely to be good news for Microsoft. Furthermore, the consent order requires Microsoft to explain by October 31 why it had not disclosed it earlier. This case was filed in 2021 and yet it took until the end of 2025 for Microsoft to produce the presentation.

Microsoft was also asked to conduct extensive, unredacted disclosure searches across its corporate mailboxes and SharePoint accounts of high-level executives for search terms including “antitrust,” “used licenses,” “second hand”, and “Value Licensing,” between July 3, 2012 and June 1, 2020. It has until November 30 to produce any documents found during the search.

Execs whose mailboxes and document repositories must be searched include Richard Chin, currently a Corporate VP at Microsoft responsible for the company’s monetisation approach and who was a General Manager between 2012 and 2020 working on pricing, licensing, and the business models in the Cloud and AI world. Kevin Turner, who was Chief Operating Officer at Microsoft from 2005 to 2016, is also on the list.

As for confidentiality, the consent order stated, “No blanket or default designation of such documents as ‘Restricted’ or ‘Confidential’ shall be applied.” Instead, it’ll be on a document-by-document basis and “limited to the precise words, figures or passages said to be sensitive; and be supported by specific reasons rather than general assertions.”

“Defendants shall disclose by no later than 4pm on 30 November 2026 any further documents they have identified relating to the same or similar matters addressed in the SHS Presentation.”

Microsoft will also keep ValueLicensing apprised of its progress every 21 days.

ValueLicensing boss Jonathan Horley said, “ValueLicensing have been working to get appropriate disclosure for some years and this Order is the result of that work and more recently disclosed documents.

“This is a further stage enabling a better understanding of how Microsoft dealt with the second-hand software market which brings a liability trial one stage closer.”

The case has had several twists over the years, not least Microsoft’s “Hail Mary” attempt to make it about copyright rather than the allegation that it deliberately stifled the sale of secondhand software licenses. This latest turn might eventually give an intriguing insight into how the US biz dealt with the market while encouraging customers to embrace subscriptions.

Arista Networks is embroiled in a dispute over VeloCloud support services, mirroring customer grievances levelled against Broadcom, the brand’s former owner.

Managed service provider TPx Communications filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late June as it sought to restructure, having accrued debts of around $1.1 billion. During the bankruptcy process, the company forked out for perpetual VeloCloud licenses and support to Arista to ensure its mission-critical infrastructure kept on running.

According to TPx, Arista throttled updates, security patches, and administrative access while dangling a $46 million, three-year subscription deal as the price of getting full service back – a steep rise considering that the company said it has paid $59 million for VeloCloud access since 2016.

TPx has taken a complaint to the courts, requesting a judge grant an order finding Arista to have breached its contract and that its restructuring efforts would “suffer irreparable harm.”

“The balance of hardships favours injunctive relief. Without an injunction, TPx faces substantial, irreversible harm, and Arista comparatively would experience little harm from having to return to its decade-long offering of services,” a Texas bankruptcy court filing reads.

TPx has been using VeloCloud for years to support offerings like its managed SD-WAN delivery platform. The company contends that a deal signed with former VeloCloud owner Broadcom in 2021 locked in prices after its subscription licenses converted to perpetual, along with three years of support.

But Broadcom sold VeloCloud to Arista last July for a price believed to be a cool $1 billion.

Having paid what it believed it owed Arista in the summer – some $2.34 million and a further $1.84 million for support – TPx alleges the vendor pulled the rug out from under them, going as far as to remove high-privilege account access, citing apparent security risks.

Arista argues that the amount paid by TPx covered license conversion as well as limited technical support, but not software upgrades, hosted orchestration, or other subscription-tier services. Such options required separate payment under a different contract clause, the vendor contends.

Arista says it did provide subscription-level services for about four months as a courtesy but warned in a letter that upgrade access would end May 20, and that its $46 million subscription quote already reflected a “significant discount” for TPx’s perpetual licenses.

The VeloCloud owner also objected to TPx’s bankruptcy efforts. A 98-page filing saw it challenge TPx’s attempts to hold onto VeloCloud contracts through bankruptcy, and claim it only gave Arista eight days to object after the restructuring-plan notice. The vendor also took issue with TPx for failing to list every relevant agreement, not disclosing potential-purchaser information, and not supplying financial projections for the reorganised company.

“[TPx] have provided virtually no adequate assurance information relating to the party that will purportedly perform under the Arista agreements post-assumption,” the filing dated July 21 reads.

The pair are set to duke it out before a court-appointed mediator. The case continues.

Former VeloCloud owner Broadcom has faced its fair share of customer legal actions after revamping VMware’s flagship Cloud Foundation (VCF) offering. The likes of Siemens, AT&T, and retail giant Tesco took action in the wake of licensing and support changes.

Just last week, the VMware parent pulled the plug on a software development kit (SDK) used by rivals to migrate virtual machines away from the platform, much to the chagrin of virtualisation competitors.

Software giant VMware is suing an Italian distributor for around €30 million in damages, claiming in a London court that the company failed to ensure a customer agreed to delete old software licenses during an upgrade plan.

VMware said Computer Gross should have required Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo to agree to VMware’s licensing terms when it sold the bank VMware’s cloud computing software, according to a newly public High Court claim.

Computer Gross had previously bought the rights to resell the software, the claim says.

VMware said that under its terms, Computer Gross was required to ensure that Intesa deleted its old software licenses once it had the updated versions. But Computer Gross failed to do so, and Intesa confirmed that it never agreed to those terms, according to the claim.

VMware said that it gave Computer Gross an 82% discount on the standard resale agreement, based on the expectation that Intesa would retire its existing perpetual licenses, according to the filing.

The list price of the software was €36 million, but Computer Gross paid only €6.6 million, resulting in a discount worth €29.4 million, the claim says.

VMware said Computer Gross should have prevented the license duplication. By not doing so, Computer Gross essentially sold the software at a heavily discounted price.

As well as damages for the allegedly unauthorised price cut, VMware is seeking an order to prevent Computer Gross from continuing separate civil proceedings in Milan, the claim says.

Computer Gross breached a jurisdiction clause in its contract with VMware when it asked the Italian court to confirm that it did not owe VMware compensation over the software deal, according to the claim.

ValueLicensing (VL) has been invited to attend a case management conference in a related multibillion-pound collective action against Microsoft, according to the reseller’s boss, Jonathan Horley.

VL sued Microsoft for £270 million in 2021, alleging that the software giant restricted the supply of surplus Office licenses available for resale. Barrister Alexander Wolfson is the proposed class representative in a separate claim filed in 2025 on behalf of more than two million UK customers. That action seeks between £1.3 billion and £3.5 billion in compensation.

Both cases are before the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) and concern Microsoft’s alleged efforts to restrict the market for pre-owned software licenses.

Case management conferences (CMCs) are used to set timetables and decide procedural questions as a case progresses.

According to Horley, ValueLicensing has a CMC concerning disclosure listed for September 14, followed the next day by an invitation to another in the Wolfson proceedings.

The September 15 CMC could address how the two proceedings interact, including whether the Wolfson action should be stayed pending judgement in the more advanced ValueLicensing case. There is also the possibility that the claims could eventually be heard together, although the tribunal has yet to indicate what course it will take.

ValueLicensing’s case is considerably further ahead of Wolfson’s. The Court of Appeal dismissed Microsoft’s appeals on issues including copyright in July, although Microsoft can seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Kate Pollock, head of competition litigation at law firm Stewarts, said of the Wolfson case earlier this year: “Microsoft’s conduct has had a profound and costly impact on millions of individuals and private and public sector organisations that rely on its software for daily business operations.

“We believe that Microsoft abused its market dominance by imposing restrictive licensing practices that effectively shut down competition and inflated prices.”

Closer procedural links between the cases could complicate Microsoft’s defence against two claims arising from similar allegations.

VL’s Horley said: “Following on from the judgement at the Court of Appeal we are pleased to have a hearing listed for September 14 to progress further disclosure. ValueLicensing has also been invited to the first hearing of the Alexander Wolfson class action on September 15. That will deal with the next steps for certification and the interactions between the two claims.”

Horley said the move was “very significant” and showed the progress ValueLicensing had made in terms of the competition and copyright law aspects.

“ValueLicensing are experts in the pre-owned Microsoft market with significant evidence and experience of the operation of the market during the relevant period in which the abuse is alleged to have occurred,” he said.

“Given that both claims relate to the pre-owned Microsoft market, that the ValueLicensing claim is so advanced and Mr Justice Turner is Chair for both, it is logical for ValueLicensing to be invited. ValueLicensing is happy to assist the Tribunal in determining the next procedural steps for both actions.”

Broadcom has lost a round in what’s shaping up to be one of the more consequential antitrust fights in European tech regulation. The EU General Court dismissed the company’s request to suspend an information demand from the European Commission, specifically one that seeks documents related to Broadcom’s US legal advisers.

The ruling effectively tells Broadcom that EU regulators can, in fact, ask for those papers. And that trying to challenge such requests could, in the court’s words, weaken enforcement efforts in EU competition law.

Still smarting from Court of Appeal loss earlier in July, Microsoft has secured an extended stay in the ValueLicensing saga as it seeks the Supreme Court’s blessing for one more roll of the dice.

The UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled in 2025 that the resale and subdivision of Microsoft on-premises software licenses did not infringe the US corporation’s copyright. Microsoft appealed and, on July 7, lost.

Proceedings had already been stayed in February pending the Court of Appeal’s decision, and an extended stay was granted July 21 after Microsoft indicated that it intends to seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Microsoft has undertaken a potentially high-risk strategy. Having first contested a claim by ValueLicensing that it had inserted contractual clauses to nudge customers toward Microsoft 365 subscriptions and prevented those customers from reselling their perpetual licenses, it changed tack. Microsoft suggested that reselling its software was illegal due to copyright infringement. The CAT ruled otherwise. Microsoft appealed and lost.

ValueLicensing sued Microsoft for £270 million in 2021 over claims that the company choked off the supply of surplus Office licenses. It’s a big number, but not as big as a class action that bears several similarities to the case. That action, represented by Alexander Wolfson, could result in a multibillion-pound payout. Microsoft has a lot to lose if things don’t go its way.

The stay does not apply to ValueLicensing’s disclosure application, nor does it apply to the confidentiality application. ValueLicensing noted that the applications “are expected to be considered at a further Case Management Conference in September, meaning the case continues to move forward despite the stay.”

The stay hinges on what happens with the Supreme Court. The Chair, Justin Turner KC, said: “As yet it is unknown whether permission to appeal to the Supreme Court will be granted. It is necessary for me to balance the potential for a waste of costs in the event permission is granted and an appeal is successful, against the undesirability of delay in these proceedings.”

The approach, where the outstanding applications could proceed, was described as “middle ground” by Justin Turner KC. “These steps are proportionate at this stage given that the Claimant has successfully prevailed before this Tribunal and the Court of Appeal.”

In the earlier judgement rejecting Microsoft’s appeal, it was noted that Microsoft’s approach, if followed, “would produce odd results.” First, there was a distinction made between products on CD-ROM, where Microsoft can’t control the resale market. Then there was the potential for a legal minefield around UsedSoft, where Oracle’s attempt to stop the sale of secondhand software licenses was stymied by an EU court in 2012.

The Microsoft approach, according to the judgement, “would mean that all that was necessary to avoid the effect of UsedSoft would be to incorporate some icons or clip art with the program.”

ValueLicensing boss Jonathan Horley said in a statement: “We are pleased a full stay of the proceedings hasn’t been granted and we can progress the outstanding applications on further disclosure and confidentiality. These are important steps to enable ValueLicensing to progress swiftly to a full liability trial. As was noted in the Reasoned Order, we succeeded at first instance and in the court of appeal and the decision to allow our disclosure applications to progress now represents a fair and proportionate decision which seeks to minimise further delay to the determination of the claim.”

Allstate Insurance Company has accused Broadcom of haphazardly issuing audits against it because the insurance firm decided not to renew its contracts with VMware and CA Technologies.

The allegations were made in relation to a lawsuit that VMware filed against Allstate in December 2025, according to The Register. In the complaint, Broadcom alleges that Allstate failed to comply with license audits, which Broadcom claims its contract with Allstate requires.

In a June 12 filing, Allstate suggested that Broadcom issued the audits in response to Allstate deciding to end business with its companies. Allstate’s statement reads:

The UK’s Court of Appeal has dismissed Microsoft’s appeal against a ruling that ValueLicensing (VL) can resell pre-owned software licences.

The judgement, handed down July 7, follows a ruling by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in November that customers could resell their licenses, even if Office contained clip-art.

In 2021, VL filed a claim accusing Microsoft of stifling the market for pre-owned on-prem software licenses, alleging the US biz baked restrictive clauses into its contracts – essentially, better subscription deals for customers who didn’t resell old licenses. VL sought £270 million in damages; Microsoft denied wrongdoing.

The case later took a turn, when Microsoft attempted to reframe it as a copyright dispute. VL was leaning on the EU’s UsedSoft ruling, which established that secondhand software licenses could legally be resold. Microsoft changed tack and countered that Office’s icons and help files made it a creative work, and thus covered by the Copyright and Information Society Directive rather than the software licensing rules UsedSoft addressed. Microsoft also argued that licenses it had sold in bulk (for example, a 1,000-seat purchase) couldn’t legally be broken up and resold piecemeal by VL.

The CAT rejected both arguments and ruled unanimously for ValueLicensing. Microsoft filed an appeal, and that appeal has now failed.

The judgement is unambiguous on both counts. On copyright, the Court of Appeal agreed with the CAT that Microsoft’s reasoning would lead to “odd results.”

“It would mean that all that was necessary to avoid the effect of UsedSoft would be to incorporate some icons or clip art with the program,” the judgement noted.

As for the subdivision of volume licenses, again, the Court of Appeal sided with the CAT and dismissed Microsoft’s appeal: there’s nothing wrong with VL’s approach.

VL’s Jonathan Horley said in a statement: “I am delighted that the Court of Appeal has given such a clear judgement in ValueLicensing’s favour on both of Microsoft’s appeals. The judgement agreed with all the main conclusions of the CAT on both rulings under appeal as well as clarifying the overall legality of our business model.”

Horley pointed out that none of Microsoft’s arguments succeeded and VL now intends to pursue its compensation claim.

“We are considering the consequences of the Court of Appeal’s judgement for Microsoft’s defence to our claim and will focus in the coming weeks and months on the key procedural steps leading up to a liability trial,” he added.

A Microsoft spokesperson said: “We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision and will seek permission to appeal. Today’s decision does not address ValueLicensing’s core complaint that we gave customers the option to apply the value of their licenses for older products to new cloud subscriptions rather than selling them to third parties.

“We continue to believe that was both legal and the right thing to do. Helping our customers move to the cloud improves productivity and security.”

Justin Turner KC, the judge presiding over ValueLicensing’s claim, is also overseeing Alexander Wolfson’s collective action against Microsoft. Wolfson was granted permission to intervene in the appeal on March 30, and the judgement noted that “the intervener’s position was essentially supportive of VL’s case.”

That potentially makes today’s dismissal significant well beyond VL’s own claim. The Wolfson collective action, bolstered by this ruling, could expose Microsoft to liability running into the billions, dwarfing the hundreds of millions at stake in VL’s original claim.

T-Mobile is asking a New York court to rule that Broadcom was contractually obligated to continue supporting its VMware perpetual licenses.

In its complaint, T-Mobile said it has tens of thousands of virtual machines using VMware software across approximately 303,140 CPU cores. It also said that it was migrating off VMware but noted the time-consuming and technical challenges involved in migrating over 1,000 applications.

It filed its lawsuit, which was first reported by The Register, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in August 2025.

The mobile company claimed that in 2023, it bought perpetual VMware licenses, plus two years of support with the option to buy a third year. But after Broadcom bought VMware, it stopped sales of VMware perpetual licenses in favour of subscriptions and started bundling VMware products into a few, more expensive bundles.

When T-Mobile tried to extend support for a third year for $5,288,398.45, Broadcom wouldn’t allow it, per an August 2025 filing from T-Mobile. A Broadcom representative reportedly told T-Mobile via email: “Broadcom announced end of available of all perpetual products, which includes Stated Out Year Renewals for perpetual support.”

A judge granted T-Mobile an injunction that allowed it to receive support services from October 2025 through August 3, 2026, for $5.28 million, plus the posting of a $500,000 undertaking.

Now, T-Mobile is seeking a declaration that it was entitled to renew support services and further relief as the court deems necessary.

At one point, T-Mobile wanted support so badly that it offered $20 million for two years of software updates and support services. The company cited litigation costs and “mitigating interruption and security risks to both the network and the business” as part of its reasoning.

In a filing last month, Broadcom claimed that it has incurred $24 million in costs to provide T-Mobile with support for six VMware products and to assign it three dedicated support account managers. T-Mobile responded that it doesn’t use three of the six named products and has opened only two service cases this year.

The case is similar to a privately settled case that Broadcom had with AT&T over VMware support and to an ongoing case with Tesco.

Broadcom previously argued that T-Mobile’s case stands out because T-Mobile waited a long time before trying to extend support.

“Thousands upon thousands have successfully migrated to subscription,” a Broadcom lawyer said in an October 2025 hearing, per the publication. “T-Mobile is the outlier here that is in litigation. … Thousands upon thousands of customers have already transferred under these sorts of provisions and accepted and understood that end of availability applies.”

However, it’s worth pointing out that the financial and technical burdens involved in suing a conglomerate like Broadcom. Those challenges may have deterred organisations, especially smaller ones, from getting into litigation over VMware.

Neither T-Mobile nor Broadcom has publicly commented on the case.

Tesco are moving 40,000 server workloads off of VMware amid “abusive conduct” from Broadcom, recent legal filings claim.

Tesco filed a lawsuit in the UK’s High Court against Broadcom alleging breach of contract last year. According to a September report from The Register, the lawsuit claimed that in January 2021, Tesco bought perpetual licenses for VMware’s vSphere Foundation and Cloud Foundation, a subscription to VMware Tanzu, plus support services until 2026, with the option to extend support for four additional years.

But when Broadcom took over VMware in November 2023, it would not honour the deal and instead tried to get Tesco to pay “excessive and inflated prices for virtualisation software for which Tesco has already paid” and would not allow it to buy support services for its perpetually licensed software without buying “duplicative subscription-based licenses for those same Software products,” the initial complaint read.

Tesco, which reported 73.7 billion pounds (about $98.7 billion) in revenue in its fiscal year 2026, has since started migrating away from VMware and Broadcom’s mainframe products, according to late-May court filings.

In January, Broadcom stopped supporting Tesco’s VMware products, Tesco said, and Tesco has been paying for third-party support since. In its initial filing, Tesco also said that Broadcom refused to upgrade software or provide all security updates to customers without subscriptions.

One of Tesco’s recent filings reads: