Fidelity sues Broadcom over access to key software to avoid outages

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) -A subsidiary of Fidelity Investments has filed a lawsuit accusing technology company Broadcom (AVGO) of threatening to cut off its access to ​key software that has become central to the financial firm’s systems, creating the ‌risk of “massive outages” and trading disruptions unless a judge intervenes to stop it.

Fidelity Technology Group, a subsidiary of ‌the Boston-based asset manager, in court filings made public on Friday in Suffolk County Superior Court alleged its business faces “enormous” harm if Broadcom is allowed to terminate its access to the “business-critical” software after January 21.

Fidelity said it has used “virtualization” software sold ⁠by VMware to create, host ‌and manage virtual servers on its physical servers since 2005. That software over time became central to Fidelity’s operations, the lawsuit said.

In 2023, ‍Broadcom completed an acquisition of VMware and revamped its product lineup by…