Adobe announced that it has abandoned its acquisition of the Figma, a web application for interface design, after mounting pressure from regulators in the US and UK. Had the deal been inked, the former would have acquired the latter for tidy sum of US$20 billion (~RM93.63 billion).
Because Adobe decided to cancel the deal with Figma, the company will instead have to pay its failed acquisition a reverse termination fee of US$1 billion (~RM4.68 billion), in cash. “Adobe and Figma strongly disagree with the recent regulatory findings, but we believe it is in our respective best interests to move forward independently,” Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO said in a statement. “While Adobe and Figma shared a vision to jointly redefine the future of creativity and productivity, we continue to be well positioned to capitalize on our massive market opportunity and mission to change the world through personalized digital experiences.”
According to The Verge, regulators believed that Adobe’s purchase of Figma would have harmed innovation in the industry, given the company’s near-monopoly in the design software market. That sentiment was echoed by designers as far back as 2022, when the merger was first announced.
Adobe has rejected any accusations of monopoly from regulators, having even rejected remedies brought forth by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), following a fairly detailed antitrust probe by the British regulatory body. “It’s not the outcome we had hoped for,” Figma CEO, Dylan Field, said in a statement. “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.”
