On Friday, Britain’s competition authority said Photoshop owner Adobe Inc.’s $20 billion purchase of cloud-based designer platform Figma could “reduce innovation” and warrant further examination.
The CMA said the deal would be sent to a phase 2 inquiry “unless the parties offer acceptable undertakings to address these competition concerns.”
CMA said Adobe had five days to resolve regulator concerns.
“We’re worried this deal could stifle innovation and lead to higher costs for companies that rely on Figma and Adobe’s digital tools,” said CMA Senior Mergers Director Sorcha O’Carroll.
“We remain confident in the merits of the case as Figma’s product design is an adjacency to Adobe’s core creative products and Adobe has no meaningful plans to compete in the product design space,” Adobe told Reuters in an email.
“We look forward to establishing these facts in the next phase of the process and successfully completing the transaction.”
“We believe strongly that our proposed combination with Adobe will not result in any reduction of competition in our respective markets,” a Figma spokeswoman told Reuters.
“We look forward to continued conversations with the CMA focused on the benefits a combined Adobe-Figma entity will bring.”
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