Google (GOOGL.US) has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft (MSFT.US) in the European Union, alleging anticompetitive practices in the cloud computing market.

Google (GOOGL.US) has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft (MSFT.US) with the European Commission, alleging that the company's licensing practices for its Azure cloud computing service are unfair. The complaint alleges that Microsoft's Azure licenses make it harder for customers to move to competing services such as Google Cloud. The lawsuit marks the latest salvo in Google's fight against Microsoft's licensing practices. In July, it was reported that the company had offered a deal worth about 470 million euros (US$512 million) to a group of European cloud companies to prevent a settlement of antitrust charges against Microsoft. The European Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers Association (CISPE) reached an agreement with Microsoft to address issues related to allegedly unfair software licensing by cloud infrastructure providers and their customers, which allowed Microsoft to avoid fines and further EU investigations. Microsoft said it expects Google's antitrust lawsuit against it to fail, noting that it had reached a similar settlement with CISPE.