A look at antitrust concerns for Adobe's $20B Figma acquisition, including whether the deal could eliminate competition and harm consumers by reducing choices
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Context & Ripple Effects
Adobe's $20B purchase of Figma — priced at roughly 50x Figma's reported 2022 ARR of $400M — was framed at announcement as Adobe's answer to free alternatives eating into its creative suite, part of what the Financial Times called an M&A whack-a-mole strategy. That framing is exactly what antitrust reviewers seized on: if the target is the competitor gaining on you, buying it removes the choice consumers would otherwise have.
The scrutiny has compounded rather than faded. The DOJ is reported to be preparing a lawsuit to block the deal, while in Europe Adobe's refusal to offer remedies for the competition concerns pushed the deal into a full-scale European Commission investigation. With the deal stalled, Adobe has redirected attention toward AI — making the regulatory outcome a test of whether premium-priced acquisitions of rising rivals remain a viable competitive tool.
First-order effects
- Adobe faces simultaneous DOJ, EU, and UK challenges to the deal, with the DOJ reportedly preparing to file suit and the European Commission's preliminary review already finding the deal may reduce competition.
- Figma's standalone trajectory — the thing regulators say consumers would lose — stays in limbo while the deal sits unresolved, and Adobe's stated expectation of closing in 2023 is now in doubt.
Second-order effects
- Adobe's refusal to offer remedies signals it would rather fight than divest, raising the stakes: if regulators hold, Adobe loses $20B of deployed strategy and its whack-a-mole response to free alternatives loses its cheapest lever.
- Rivals and would-be targets in creative software now price regulatory risk into exit outcomes — a 50x-ARR premium looks less attainable when the buyer's motive is framed as eliminating competition rather than acquiring capability.
Third-order effects
- If the DOJ and EU pattern holds, remedies offers stop clearing the path for large platform acquisitions of fast-growing adjacent rivals, forcing incumbents like Adobe toward building competing products in-house rather than buying them.
- The case becomes a template for how regulators treat 'buy the disruptor' deals: the premium itself — 50x ARR — becomes evidence of the competitive threat, inverting the traditional assumption that high prices signal value creation for shareholders rather than harm to consumers.
The trend: Antitrust enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly blocking incumbents' acquisitions of fast-growing rivals outright, turning buy-versus-build decisions toward build and raising the effective price of defensive M&A.