Adobe, Figma Deal Faces EU Antitrust Probe Post Concerning Reviews

Adobe said it has received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the deal from customers worldwide.

By Reuters | Updated: 7 August 2023 21:28 IST

Adobe, Figma Deal Faces EU Antitrust Probe Post Concerning Reviews

Figma's web-based collaborative platform for designs is popular among tech companies

Highlights

Tech deals have recently drawn sharp antitrust regulatory scrutiny
The deal could allow Adobe to restrict competition in the global markets
EU regulator would decide by December 14 whether to clear or block deal

Adobe's $20 billion (nearly Rs. 1,65,550 crore) bid for cloud-based designer platform Figma could reduce competition in global markets for interactive product design tools and also shut out rivals, EU antitrust regulators said on Monday.

The European Commission said it opened a full-scale investigation into the deal after a preliminary review triggered concerns, confirming a Reuters story last month.

Tech deals have recently drawn sharp antitrust regulatory scrutiny amid fears that some bigger companies may be acquiring rival start-ups to shut them down.

[Sponsored] Samsung Galaxy S24: The Ultimate Camera Phone With Smarter On-Device AI

Figma's web-based collaborative platform for designs and brainstorming is popular among tech companies including Zoom Video Communications, Airbnb and Coinbase.

The deal would remove an important rival and could allow Photoshop maker Adobe to restrict competition in the global markets for supply of interactive product design tools, the EU antitrust watchdog said.

It said the acquisition could also affect Figma's potential for growth into an effective competitor to Adobe's asset creation tools and effectively reduce competition in interactive product design tools by bundling Figma with Adobe's Creative Cloud suite.

Adobe, Figma Deal Fate to be Decided on August 7 by EU Antitrust Body

"With our in-depth investigation we aim to ensure that users continue to have access to a wide pool of digital creative tools to choose from," European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

Adobe said it has received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the deal from customers worldwide.

"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," the company said in a statement.

Adobe to Offer AI Tool Firefly to Its Large Business Customers

"We look forward to establishing these facts in the next phase of the process and successfully completing the transaction."

The EU competition enforcer said it would decide by December 14 whether to clear or block the deal.

Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 alongside the Galaxy Tab S9 series and Galaxy Watch 6 series at its first Galaxy Unpacked event in South Korea. We discuss the company's new devices and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.