Commission accepts binding commitments by SAP to address competition concerns about services for its popular business management software

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

The European Commission has accepted commitments from SAP to address EU competition concerns relating to its aftermarket support services for on-premises Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. These commitments are now legally binding under EU antitrust rules.

More specifically, SAP will:

• Clarify the conditions for splitting customers’ SAP landscape into separate parts, allowing customers to choose different maintenance and support (M&S) service providers, different levels of support from SAP, or none at all for each part;
• Allow customers to terminate their licences and the respective M&S fees in the following specific scenarios:
  • For products in the final M&S stage in which SAP provides reduced services;
  • For failed implementation projects where the responsibility for the failure is on SAP;
  • In case of customers’ insolvency or bankruptcy;
  • In case of workforce reduction of 10% or more over a period of two years customers will have the possibility to reduce 10% of their licences and related M&S costs;
  • In case of divestiture of a business, customers will be able to transfer the licences to the buyer; transfer part of the licences to the buyer and terminate the remainder, or terminate all the licences if the buyer has no need for SAP software;
• Give wider access to single-metric contracts, which provide an alternative way for calculating the licence fees based on which M&S fees are calculated in turn;

• Clarify its contractual provisions regarding the initial licence term, during which customers cannot terminate their support contracts, and refrain from restarting a new term for every additional licence purchase;
• Abolish reinstatement fees and reduce back maintenance fees charged to customers who return to SAP’s support after a period of absence; and
• Create an internal clearing structure customers can turn to when they consider that SAP is not applying the commitments correctly.

The Commission’s preliminary concerns

In September 2025, the Commission opened a formal investigation and preliminarily found that SAP has been engaging in four practices that could restrict competition in the EEA-wide market for M&S services for SAP’s on-premises ERP software.

The Commission had indications that SAP may have abused its dominant position by:

• Preventing customers from terminating maintenance and support services for unused software licences, which may have resulted in SAP’s customers paying for unwanted services;
• Charging reinstatement and back-maintenance fees to customers who subscribe to SAP’s maintenance and support after a period of absence. In some cases, these fees corresponded to the amount customers would have paid if they had stayed with SAP all along;
• Systematically extending the duration of the initial term of on-premises ERP licences, during which termination of maintenance and support services was not possible; and
• Requiring its maintenance and support customers to (i) seek maintenance and support services from SAP for all their SAP on-premises ERP software, and (ii) choose the same type of maintenance and support under the same pricing conditions for all their SAP on-premises ERP software. This may have prevented customers from “mixing and matching” maintenance and support services from different suppliers at different price and support levels despite it being more convenient for them.

The Commission preliminarily found that, by doing so, SAP may have restricted competition on the market for M&S services for SAP’s on-premises ERP software, in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU and Article 54 of the European Economic Area (‘EEA’) Agreement, which prohibit the abuse of a dominant position that may affect trade and prevent or restrict competition within the Single Market.

In response to the Commission’s concerns, SAP offered commitments. Between November 2025 and December 2025, the Commission market-tested those commitments and consulted all interested third parties to verify whether they would remove competition concerns. In light of the outcome of this market test, SAP adjusted the initial proposal.

The commitments offered by SAP will remain in force globally for ten years. Their implementation will be monitored by a monitoring trustee, who will report regularly to the Commission during the time the commitments are in place.

The Commission concluded that the final commitments adequately address its preliminary competition concerns and has decided to make them legally binding on SAP.

Background

SAP is a German-based multinational corporation which develops software applications for companies to manage their business operations. This includes ERP software, which supports business functions such as managing corporate finances, human resources and project management. SAP’s ERP software can be provided on-premises – when the software runs on the customer’s own servers – or via the cloud, hosted on SAP’s servers and delivered over the internet. SAP also provides M&S services for its ERP software, which include regular updates and technical assistance for its business customers to keep the software operational. Other companies also provide M&S services for SAP’s on-premises ERP software, in competition with SAP, often against better commercial conditions.

Article 9(1) of Regulation 1/2003 enables companies investigated by the Commission to offer commitments in order to meet the Commission’s concerns and empowers the Commission to make such commitments binding on the companies.

If the company does not honour the commitments, the Commission may impose a fine of up to 10% of its worldwide annual turnover, without having to find an infringement of EU antitrust rules, or a periodic penalty payment of 5% per day of its daily turnover for every day of non-compliance.

For more information

More information, including the full text of the commitments, will be available on the Commission’s competition website, in the public case register under the case number AT.40823.