Kyndryl

Kyndryl Holdings is a US IT-infrastructure services company headquartered in New York, spun off from IBM on 19 October 2021 as the world's largest IT-infrastructure services provider by revenue at the time of separation. It manages mainframe, hybrid cloud, network and workplace technology for enterprise and government clients across more than 60 countries, including several national public administrations in Europe. IBM retained a minority stake at spin-off; Kyndryl has since traded independently on the New York Stock Exchange (KD). Its European operations include managed-service contracts with public-sector clients in Germany, France, the Netherlands and the UK.

In its bid to acquire Solvinity, a Dutch cloud provider hosting the DigiD national digital-identity system, Kyndryl offered approximately EUR 100m. The Dutch competition authority ACM cleared the deal on antitrust grounds in February 2026. On 26 May 2026 Dutch Minister Willemijn Aerdts prohibited the acquisition under the VIFO investment-screening Act, ruling that US parent ownership created an unacceptable risk of compelled disclosure under the US CLOUD Act: as a US-incorporated entity, Kyndryl could be legally ordered by American authorities to produce data held by a Dutch subsidiary, without requiring a Dutch court order. Kyndryl told Politico it was "extremely disappointed" with the decision .

The Dutch prohibition is the first investment-screening block of a US cloud acquisition in Europe on explicit CLOUD Act grounds, and it lands while the European Commission's Cloud and AI Development Act (CAIDA) is still awaiting adoption. For Kyndryl, the ruling closes off a straightforward PATH to expanding its European public-sector client base through acquisition of sovereign infrastructure operators. More broadly, the decision signals to US IT-services firms with European public-sector ambitions that CLOUD Act exposure is now a disqualifying factor in national-security screening, independently of antitrust clearance. Kyndryl has not indicated whether it will challenge the decision in Dutch courts or seek an alternative transaction structure.