Microsoft and Google have reportedly ended a six-year truce on legal battles, to prevent open warfare between the two tech giants. The two companies reached an unusual pact in 2015 to end a running legal battle, forged soon after Sundar Pichai became the CEO of Google and Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft. According to Financial Times, ending the six-year truce will pave the way "for direct conflict as regulators take aim at barriers to competition among the leading US technology groups".

The pact has expired in the middle of April and the two sides decided not to renew it, the report said, citing sources. The gloves appear to be off once again between Microsoft and Google. Earlier this year, Google criticised Microsoft for trying to "break the way the open web works" and Microsoft publicly supported a law in Australia that forced Google to pay news publishers for their content.