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The UK competition authority is adding Adobe’s $20 billion bid for digital design rival FIMA to its ever-growing to-do list.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has today confirmed the launch of an initial “Stage 1” merger inquiry, giving relevant stakeholders two weeks to comment.
Adobe first confirmed its $20 billion bid for Figma last September, and is always expected to face at least some regulatory scrutiny. In February, the European Commission said it was reviewing the acquisition on competition grounds, saying the deal had “significant effects on competition in the market for interactive product design and whiteboard software.”
E.C. It intervened after receiving requests from more than 12 EU member states, including France and Germany.
Elsewhere, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is said to be preparing a lawsuit to block the deal.
A whole plate
The Adobe-Figma acquisition is the latest in a string of M&A transactions that the UK has chosen to watch. CMA recently confirmed that it is pursuing Broadcom’s $61 billion acquisition of VMware, just last week Microsoft went the nine yards by publicly blocking its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion.
The CMA was seeking to investigate Apple and Google’s “mobile duopoly” around browser and cloud gaming, but Apple managed to get that out on a legal technicality. The CMA appealed the decision, but news broke earlier today that the appeal had been rejected.
Elsewhere, UK communications industry regulator Ofcom is currently evaluating whether to steer the local cloud infrastructure services market into CMA, with AWS and Microsoft in the crosshairs.
Following the initial Adobe-Figma merger application period, which ends on May 18, the CMA will have until June 30 to review its findings and decide whether to proceed to a more in-depth “Phase 2” investigation.
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