Adobe Drops Bid To Buy Figma Amid Monopoly Concerns

janrinok writes:

Now Photoshop giant needs to cough up that $1B break-up fee:

Adobe has decided to abandon its $20 billion acquisition of Figma in a concession to regulatory pressure in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The two software makers said on Monday they had reached a joint decision to cancel the pending deal, which was announced in September, 2022.

"It's not the outcome we had hoped for, but despite thousands of hours spent with regulators around the world detailing differences between our businesses, our products, and the markets we serve, we no longer see a path toward regulatory approval of the deal," said Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma, in a statement.

Shantanu Narayen, chair and CEO of Adobe, offered a similar concession speech: "Adobe and Figma strongly disagree with the recent regulatory findings, but we believe it is in our respective best interests to move forward independently."

Doing so will cost Adobe $1 billion - that's the amount of the breakup fee due to Figma for Adobe's failure to complete the deal. Everyone knows Adobe is the home of Photoshop, Illustrator, and other tools; Figma, meanwhile, makes software primarily for planning and sketching out graphic designs in a collaborative way with others.

[...] The cancellation of the acquisition is one of the higher profile antitrust blows struck by regulators against Big Tech in several years of political jawboning on both sides of the Atlantic about the need to tame technology firms.

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