EU's Margrethe Vestager deploys a rarely used tool against Broadcom to halt possible anti-competitive practices during an ongoing enquiry; Broadcom will appeal
Ms. Vestager, the E.U.'s antitrust regulator, ordered Broadcom to halt possible anticompetitive practices while an inquiry is underway, signaling a more aggressive approach.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the payoff of a move telegraphed months earlier: when the EU opened its formal probe into Broadcom's suspected exclusivity practices in June, it already said it would seek an interim order alongside the investigation. Deploying one now — a tool Vestager has rarely reached for — converts that request into an actual halt on behavior while the enquiry runs.
It also fits the arc of her tenure: from arguing in early 2019 that breaking up big tech should be a last resort, to framing by 2022 how the planned Digital Markets Act could strengthen enforcement (her Q&A on the DMA and the Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon cases). Interim measures are the pre-DMA version of the same idea — constrain conduct before the harm compounds rather than fining after.
First-order effects
- Broadcom must suspend the suspected exclusivity terms immediately, before any final verdict — its chip customers can renegotiate or diversify supply without waiting out a multi-year investigation.
- Broadcom's appeal makes the legal fight about the tool itself: whether the EU can lawfully freeze conduct mid-inquiry, not just whether the conduct was anti-competitive.
Second-order effects
- Rival chip suppliers get an open window into accounts Broadcom had locked down, shifting near-term pricing and design-win competition while the injunction holds.
- Every other company under active EU investigation — the Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon caseload Vestager discussed in 2022 — now faces the prospect of the same real-time treatment, raising the cost of stalling tactics.
Third-order effects
- If interim orders become routine, EU antitrust shifts structurally from retrospective fines toward in-flight behavioral control — the enforcement philosophy the Digital Markets Act later institutionalizes as permanent ex-ante rules for gatekeepers.
The trend: EU competition enforcement is moving from slow, verdict-then-fine investigations toward preemptive intervention while markets are still contested, with the DMA as its formalized endpoint.