SAP has talked its way out of an EU antitrust fine. The European Commission said it would accept a set of commitments from the German software group, closing an investigation into how SAP handles maintenance and support for its on-premise enterprise software and sparing it a penalty that could have run into the billions. It is the kind of negotiated exit that has become Brussels’ preferred outcome in complex tech cases.
The case dates to September 2025, when regulators opened a probe into concerns that SAP’s practices restricted competition in the aftermarket for maintenance and support of its software.
The worry was familiar in enterprise software: once a customer is locked into a core system, the terms attached to keeping it running can quietly foreclose rivals who might otherwise offer cheaper or better support.
SAP’s answer was a package of concessions rather than a fight. The company agreed to offer an alternative method for calculating the licence fees on which maintenance and service charges are based, a technical change that goes to the heart of how customers get priced into staying.
It also agreed to scrap reinstatement fees and to reduce back-maintenance charges for customers who leave and later return. Those fees are the sort of friction that makes switching support providers expensive enough that many customers simply do not bother, which is precisely the effect regulators objected to.
