EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager had come out against the deal.
Adobe abandoned a planned $20 billion takeover of design software rival Figma on Monday, saying there is “no clear path” to winning approval from European Union and United Kingdom merger authorities.
“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,” Figma Chief Executive Dylan Field wrote in a blog post on Monday.
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority had told them to sell off a key Figma unit which the companies said earlier would destroy the rationale for the deal.
The European Commission issued a warning on the companies over the deal last month and company executives had also met with U.S. officials to try and save it.
EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said the deal would have terminated all current competition “and prevented all future competition between them,” risking higher prices, reduced quality or less choice for consumers.
“It is important in digital markets, as well as in more traditional industries, to not only look at current overlaps but to also protect future competition,” she said. “This applies in particular to transactions by which large, established companies acquire successful disruptive innovators.”
The Adobe deal fell outside the EU’s usual revenue thresholds for a merger review but was referred by national authorities using the Article 22 procedure for potentially problematic deals.
Adobe will pay Figma a $1 billion termination fee for scrapping the transaction.
Source: Politico
