Fidelity Investments just dodged a potentially ugly technology standoff.

The asset management giant said Friday it has settled a lawsuit with Broadcom over access to software Fidelity described as essential to keeping its systems running. The agreement brings an end to a legal fight that raised concerns about outages, frozen accounts, and trading disruptions across one of the largest financial platforms in the world.

The dispute dates back to Broadcom’s 2023 acquisition of VMware, whose virtualization software Fidelity has relied on since 2005. If you’re unaware, that software helps create and manage virtual servers that support customer accounts, trading platforms, and internal systems. And over time, it became deeply embedded in Fidelity’s infrastructure.

After acquiring VMware, Broadcom reworked the product lineup, packaging key tools into more expensive bundles. Fidelity said when it tried to renew its subscription, Broadcom declined to honor existing renewal terms and pushed the bundled offering instead. Fidelity responded by filing suit, warning that losing access could have serious downstream effects.

In court filings, Fidelity said outages could prevent customers from logging in, executing trades, or accessing retirement accounts, while employees could lose access to critical internal systems. For a firm overseeing roughly $17.5 trillion in assets for about 50 million customers, that kind of disruption wasn’t an option.

The settlement removes that immediate risk. Fidelity says Broadcom will continue providing the software without interruption, and customers won’t notice any changes.

But Fidelity’s technology decisions are still under scrutiny elsewhere.

In a separate issue, the company has restricted access for third-party advisory platforms like Pontera, which some financial advisors use to manage clients’ 401k accounts. Fidelity has cited security concerns related to credential sharing and unauthorized activity.

The move has frustrated some customers, who found themselves temporarily locked out of their online retirement accounts after using outside advisors. Several said they initially believed warning emails were scams.

So while Fidelity resolved one behind-the-scenes tech dispute, questions remain about how much control financial platforms should exert over access to customer accounts… especially when technology sits at the center of everything.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.