Microsoft announced Monday that it will separate Teams from the rest of its Office suite. According to an exclusive report for Reutersthe tech giant will separate the two products in a possible attempt to avoid antitrust fines.

The global move came six months after Microsoft pushed the Teams outside of its Office product in Europe. The European Commission has been looking into the Teams and Office suite since 2020 when Microsoft competitor Slack filed a antitrust complaint.

Microsoft tied Teams to its “dominant Office product, forcing its installation and blocking its removal,” said David Schellhase, general counsel at Slack. threshold in that time.

^{A screen shows a virtual meeting with Microsoft Teams at ISE 2024. Photo by Cesc Maymo/Getty Images}

Microsoft responded to the complaint by “proactively” separating Teams from Office in the EU to “support a healthy competitive environment,” according to an August. blog post from the company.

Sensor Tower data cited by Reuters revealed that the size of the Microsoft Teams user base in the area has remained largely the same since then.

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The global move announced today expands on what Microsoft began doing last year in the EU, according to a Microsoft spokesperson statement to Reuters.

Microsoft has had to pay huge antitrust fines to the EU before, from a record of $1.4 billion the company was forced to pay them in 2004 732 million dollars was paid in 2013.