On 21 October 2026, the EU General Court upheld requests from CISPE and the European Commission to keep specified information in the application and its annexes confidential from Broadcom Inc. in Case T‑503/25. Broadcom had intervened in support of the Commission. The order governs access to case-file information; CISPE’s challenge to the merger clearance remains undecided. The General Court’s order is identified as ECLI:EU:T:2026:697.
Why the court protected the information
The court said disclosure could identify CISPE members involved in the case and reveal sensitive commercial information, including their business relationships, experiences as VMware customers and strategic decisions. It found that identification could expose members to retaliation and commercial harm.
The court said that concern also applied to former VMware customers. It cited Broadcom’s dominant position in the market for Fibre Channel host bus adapters (FC HBAs), hardware the court described as essential to cloud infrastructure services. The protected annexes also contained material related to the European Commission’s preliminary competition investigation into VMware software licensing, Case AT.40924; the court said disclosure could compromise that investigation.
What the order means for CISPE’s challenge
CISPE, an association of 48 cloud infrastructure service providers operating across the EU, is seeking to annul the European Commission’s decision of 12 July 2023, which cleared the Broadcom/VMware concentration. The Commission is the defendant in the case. Broadcom is an intervener supporting the Commission.
Broadcom argued that the redacted information was needed to challenge whether CISPE’s action was admissible and to respond to its substantive claims. The court held that Broadcom could not raise an admissibility objection because the Commission had not raised one. It also found that the confidentiality protections still allowed Broadcom to understand and answer CISPE’s substantive pleas.
